01-Oct-83 0302 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #0 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts at MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 0 Today's Topics: Re: Space Station Politics (reusing external tanks) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 30 Sep 83 10:01:03 PDT (Fri) From: Katz.UCI@Rand-Relay Return-Path: Subject: Re: Space Station Politics (reusing external tanks) To: Robert Elton Maas Cc: TAW@Su-Ai, SPACE@Mit-Mc, katz.UCI@Rand-Relay Via: UCI; 30 Sep 83 17:04-PDT I think that you have a good point. Many of the early NASA views on how to build a space station were based on hollowing out Saturn V boosters and attaching them to a maintenance core. The idea was that since the boosters were already leaving the ground, why not make use of them. The same argument applies to the Shuttle's external tank. How much would it take to modify it into an accessable compartment? How much extra fuel would it take to leave the tanks in LEO instead of having them burn up in the atmosphere? I think that NASA and the government may be thinking too high tech, but not of what is needed. What we need first is not specially designed facilities, but life support and space -- the rest will follow. ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 02-Oct-83 0304 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #1 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts at MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 1 Today's Topics: unknown USS Little Rock (CLG-4) Did you serve? Rollout Delayed Shuttle at Pad Elevators Soviet rocket accident ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 28 Sep 83 20:31:19-PDT (Wed) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: decvax!tektronix!tekecs!danc @ Ucb-Vax Subject: unknown net.jokes Cc: Subject: USS Little Rock (CLG-4) Did you serve? ------- Is there anyone out there in netland that served on the Rock? I was onboard for two years.. 1973-1975. It would be great to hear from you if you did. If you do respond, please use mail or net.general. Thanx. And please forgive the intrusion with this non-news message. Dan Cobb ------------------------------ Date: 28 Sep 83 20:35:29-PDT (Wed) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: decvax!tektronix!tekecs!danc @ Ucb-Vax Subject: USS Little Rock (CLG-4) Did you serve? Is there anyone out there in netland that served on the Rock? I was onboard for two years.. 1973-1975. It would be great to hear from you if you did. If you do respond, please use mail or net.general. Thanx. And please forgive the intrusion with this non-news message. Dan Cobb ------------------------------ Date: 28 Sep 83 15:09:04-PDT (Wed) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: decvax!tektronix!uw-beaver!cornell!vax135!ariel!hou5f!hou5g!hou5h!eagle!allegra!alice!alb @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Rollout Delayed The rollout of the Columbia to the pad today was delayed several hours due to a crack in a nozzle lining of an SRB. The crack was later discovered to be only a machining mark. ------------------------------ Date: 28 Sep 83 19:48:52-PDT (Wed) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: ihnp4!cbosgd!mhuxi!eagle!allegra!alice!alb @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Shuttle at Pad The shuttle is now at the pad, after its rollout had been delayed a few hours this morning due to a minor problem with an SRB nozzle. ------------------------------ Date: 28 Sep 83 12:03:32-PDT (Wed) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: pur-ee!CSvax.Pucc-H.pur-phy!piner @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Elevators There is a practical problem with elevators too. If your elevator moves at 100 miles per hour. It will take 10 days to reach orbit. Rich Piner Purdue Physics Dept. ------------------------------ Date: 01 Oct 83 1236 PDT From: Ross Finlayson Subject: Soviet rocket accident To: space@MIT-MC a226 1149 01 Oct 83 AM-Space Accident,520 Soviet Rocket Burns on Launch Pad; Crew Saved By HOWARD BENEDICT Associated Press Writer WASHINGTON (AP) - A Soviet rocket burst into flames on a remote launch pad in Asia last week, forcing the ejection of three cosmonauts who parachuted to safety, U.S. intelligence officials said Saturday. The sources, who asked to remain anonymous, said the cosmonauts may have been injured in the accident last Tuesday. The accident is as serious a setback as the manned Soviet space program is known to have suffered, the sources said. The cosmonauts were saved when their Soyuz spaceship was jerked away from the booster by an escape rocket mounted atop the capsule, the sources said. They said the flash fire occurred as the liquid-fuel rocket was about to blast off and send the cosmonauts, one of whom may have been a woman, to relieve the crew aboard the orbiting Salyut 7 space station. The sources said there is a possibility the cosmonauts could have been hurt in the accident because of the abrupt ejection. Their mission was designated T-10, as it would have been the 10th mission of the Soyuz-T program. ''The escape rocket really pulled the capsule away with a slam bang. The cosmonauts are subjected to 15 Gs for two to three seconds,'' said one source, referring to a gravitational force 15 times that normally felt on Earth. ''That's like driving a car into a tree,'' he said. The sources declined to say where they got their information, but it is known that the United States has an intelligence network that includes spy satellites and radar listening posts along the Soviet border. Earlier reports were that the T-10 rocket had exploded on the launch pad, but the sources said they were fairly certain the accident was caused by a fire. They did not rule out the possibility of a blast, however. The Soyuz rocket is fueled by some 270 tons of highly flammable kerosene and liquid oxygen. The space shuttle, the only U.S. spacecraft now in operation, is boosted into orbit by a pair of solid-fuel rockets and three main engines fueled by liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen. Prior to 1981, the United States used the same liquid fuel in its rockets as the Soviets now use in the Soyuz craft. The Soviets have not made any public announcements about the incident. Myron Nagurney, senior duty officer for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, said Friday night he had no information about such an accident. The intelligence sources said the fire occurred about 1:38 a.m. Tuesday, at the launch site, or 11:38 p.m. Monday, Moscow time. That would have been 4:38 p.m. EDT Monday. The cosmonauts now aboard Salyut 7 were scheduled to come home this week or next. It is not known how much longer they will now be forced to remain in orbit. The only other known Soviet launching abort took place in April of 1975, when two cosmonauts aboard Soyuz 18A made an emergency landing in the Alpine Mountains after the third stage of their rocket failed. That rocket was launched from the same pad as the one that burned last Tuesday. ap-ny-10-01 1450EDT ********** ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 03-Oct-83 0303 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #2 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts at MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 2 Today's Topics: Shuttle article ETs to orbit Elevators ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 2 Oct 1983 9:18:36 EDT (Sunday) From: Andrew Malis Subject: Shuttle article To: space@mit-mc Cc: malis@BBN-UNIX There's a fine article about the shuttle flights in the latest issue of the New Yorker, dated October 3. It's worth looking up in your local library if you can't find it on a newsstand. Enjoy, Andy ------------------------------ Date: 2 Oct 1983 13:58-EST From: Greg.Toto@CMU-RI-SENSOR.ARPA Subject: ETs to orbit To: space@mit-mc@cmua Message-Id: <433965509/gmt@CMU-RI-SENSOR> It is my understanding that more fuel is used dumping the external tank in the ocean than is required to get it (with quite a bit of liquid oxygen and hydrogen still aboard) to LEO. I believe this is because of the shuttle flight profile required to insure that the tanks impact in the Indian Ocean. I seem to recall an article on this in a recent Analog (by Jerry Pournelle maybe?). The idea was to tether spent ETs together and use them for raw material and for a momentum repository. There is a good story with this theme in the November 83 Analog called "Tank-Farm Dynamo" by David Brin. I would be interested in a discussion on this subject. Comments? Greg Toto (gmt@cmu-ri-sensor@cmua) ------------------------------ Date: 3 October 1983 01:16 EDT From: Robert Elton Maas Subject: Elevators To: pur-ee!CSvax.Pucc-H.pur-phy!piner @ UCB-VAX cc: SPACE @ MIT-MC Let's see, 100 miles/hour, 10 days, 24 hours/day, that's 24,000 miles above the surface. Yeah, if you're going to geosync orbit it'll take that long. I guess people in a hurry had better go 200 miles up (that's 2 hours of travel) then jump off and fire a small rocket to achieve low-Earth-orbit before reaching the atmosphere, then at leisure maneuver to desired orbit. This is a lot cheaper than going all the way from Earth's surface using rockets. Alternately, once you're out of the atmosphere you can go faster than 100 mi/hr, i.e. the elevator can be in two parts, a slow part for initial ascent, then a mass-driver or whatever for fast main part. ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 04-Oct-83 0302 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #3 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts at MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 3 Today's Topics: spending spree ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 2 Oct 83 16:20-EST (Sun) From: Steven Gutfreund Return-Path: Subject: spending spree To: space@mit-mc Cc: arms-d@mit-mc, politics@mit-mc, ellis.umass-cs@Rand-Relay Via: UMASS-COINS; 3 Oct 83 16:41-PDT Yes, it is very odd to find the military complaining about the cost of the space station. On Sept 30, the military had the largest one day spending spree in its history (NYT). They had $4.2 Billion dollars on hand at the end of the Federal Fiscal Year. If they did not spend it by the the next day, they would have to give it back to the Treasury. Of course, no government agency likes to do that. So they spent all $4.2 billion of it in one day. Naturally, they did not look to closely at what they were buying, Most of the contract descriptions were under 2 lines of text for expenditures in the multiple millions. - Steven Gutfreund ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 08-Oct-83 0302 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #4 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts at MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 4 Today's Topics: Fifth shuttle orbiter... Re: Elevators?? - (nf) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 7 October 1983 21:48 EDT From: Robert E. Bruccoleri Subject: Fifth shuttle orbiter... To: space @ MIT-MC I received an "Alert" postcard from the Campaign for Space on Oct. 4 which read, "Recent press reports indicate that the Reagan Administration has decided against funding for a fifth shuttle orbiter, and that as a result, the shuttle production lines will be shut down after the fourth shuttle is completed." This is quite a surprise if true. Has anyone heard or read anything to corroborate it? ------------------------------ Date: 5 Oct 83 4:32:02-PDT (Wed) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: ihnp4!zehntel!berry @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: Elevators?? - (nf) #R:duke:-358200:zinfandel:11100005:000:342 zinfandel!berry Sep 30 14:28:00 1983 While the elevetors or 'beanstalks' described by Clarke, Sheffield et. al. DO require advances in materials, what is required isn't all that much stronger than what we've got. Carbon fibers in epoxy matrix is ALMOST strong enough, if I recall correctly... Berry Kercheval Zehntel Inc. (decvax!sytek!zehntel!zinfandel!berry) (415)932-6900 ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 09-Oct-83 0303 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #5 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts at MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 5 Today's Topics: Re: re: space colonization - (nf) Re: What is a deadly Von Neuman probe? Sun, aphelion, etc - an astronomer's view shuttle tanks Re: sri-arpa.12203: Re: Space Station Politics (reusing exte ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 11 Oct 83 21:52:01-EDT (Tue) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: pur-ee!uiucdcs!trsvax!cozadde @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: re: space colonization - (nf) #R:sri-arpa:-1199500:trsvax:56000008:000:2364 trsvax!cozadde Oct 3 12:57:00 1983 To: John Redford I quite disagree with you on several points. In the main, the Antarctica is definitely a more hostile place to live, do business, or anything else required of a normal life. Space has only two unique problems, vacuum and hard radiation. The problems of vacuum have al- ready been addressed and disposed of in the short term and the long term is being studied and worked out. Hard radiation is a little tougher. It requires either moving quickly during exposure time or using some bulky object (Terra, Luna or convenient asteriods) as a shield during heavy radiation outburst periods. We will most likely develop better shielding as time goes by especially if a well paid for demand comes about. The main reason the resources of Antarctica have been left dormant is they are not unique. Coal is found all over the world and is easier to get to than digging through a few thousand feet of ice and snow to get to it. The same thing goes for oil, gas, metalic ores, etc. If the Antarctic had a resource that was unique (besides being the coldest, most removed from Man's corruptive influence) and economically recover- able, the place would be swarming with people (like the Yukon gold rush). On the other hand, space offers several unique resources that are either impossible or very difficult/expensive to duplicate here on Earth. The first is full range gas pressure regulation. Second is isolation from immediate integration with the human biosphere. Third is full range of energy sources, both intensity and type. Inexpensive transportation is available to move any size or (theorically) mass object as long as it is not within the atmospheric envelope of a plane- tary body. There are many more, but I'm not trying to write a paper here. In conclusion, I don't think space will be left as a barren wasteland as the Antarctic has been. There are more reasons to go there to work, live, and grow than the Antartic has ever offered. I'm so confident of this that I am planning to 'retire' to space to start my second life. I figure I can only live dirt-side until I'm sixty or so, but I think I could live to be 120 to 150 years or so if I live out my 'second' life in space. lt. of marines ...microsoft!trsvax!cozadde ...laidbak!trsvax!cozadde ...ctvax!trsvax!cozadde ------------------------------ Date: 4 Oct 83 11:25:31-PDT (Tue) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: hplabs!hao!kpno!ut-sally!utastro!bill @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: What is a deadly Von Neuman probe? In-Reply-To: Article <12170@sri-arpa.UUCP> A von Neuman probe is a self-replicating automaton which has been sent out by an intelligent life-form to explore the galaxy in lieu of the personal presence of the life-form. A deadly von Neuman probe is one that, through mutation (e.g., incorrect replication of its program) or design (e.g., deliberate design by the race that made it) is inimical to some or all forms of life. The fear is that such probes might be deliberately sent out by xenophobic races to wipe out planets it detects emitting electromagnetic radiation before the intelligent race on such a planet could become a threat; or that a mutated probe might even produce a race of probes inimical to its creators. There is an interesting article on this and related subjects that appeared just yesterday in my snailbox. It is "The 'Great Silence': the Controversy Concerning Extraterrestrial Life", by Glen David Brin, in the *Quarterly Journal of the Royal Astronomical Society*, Vol. 24, p. 283 (1983). Bill Jefferys 8-% Astronomy Dept, University of Texas, Austin TX 78712 (Snail) ihnp4!kpno!utastro!bill (uucp) utastro!bill@utexas-11 (ARPA) ------------------------------ Date: 4 Oct 83 13:07:45-PDT (Tue) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: hplabs!hao!kpno!ut-sally!utastro!bill @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Sun, aphelion, etc - an astronomer's view Mark Brader (dciem!ntt) asked me to post the following, with additions, in response to his letter to me asking whether the IAU has an official position with regard to names for the Sun, Moon, etc., and about capitalization of these names. I have checked my understanding with Dr. J. D. Mulholland, who is most knowledgeable about these things, and this is how it shapes up: The IAU has never taken a stand on the names of the Sun, Moon, Earth or Galaxy since these names (with the exception of the latter) were in common use for centuries and are simply part of the language. As to capitalization, the common practice until about 1940 was to capitalize, at which point the grammarians took over the editorial offices of the various journals, and "sun", "moon" and "earth" were no longer capitalized. Mulholland himself feels (and I agree with him) that this is a foolish exercise in pedantry, and he fought a battle with the editor of the Astronomical Journal which resulted in its adopting a neutral policy with regard to capitalization, i.e., whatever the author wants is what he gets. As to the definite article, it is invariably used. The word "Galaxy" is invariably capitalized to distinguish it from other galaxies, and again it takes the definite article. In addition, one often sees "The Milky Way" - again, this is an ancient name. To summarize: You can capitalize or not as you see fit; some editors may care, but the IAU doesn't; use the definite article; always capitalize Galaxy or Milky Way when referring to our stellar system. Mark also asked me to comment further on peri- and apo- words, and I am happy to do so. First, "pericenter" and "apocenter" can *always* be used, regardless of the primary. Except for these words, a particular primary is always meant. Thus I have heard or seen in print the following (some, such as peribarythron and peribothron are strictly "unofficial"): Term Primary pericenter, apocenter Any primary perilune, apolune, Moon (Lat. "luna" - Moon) pericynthion, apocynthion Moon (Lat. "Cynthia" - Moon) pericytherion, apocytherion Venus (Grk. "Cytheria" - Venus) perijove, apojove Jupiter (Lat. "Jove" - Jupiter) perisaturnium, aposaturnium Saturn perihelion, aphelion Sun (Grk. "Helios" - Sun) perigee, apogee Earth (Grk. "Geos" - Sun) periastron, apastron any star (Grk. "Astron" - star) perigalacticon, apogalacticon the Galaxy peribarythron, apobarythron, a black hole (Grk. "bary" - heavy) peribothron, apobothron a black hole (Grk. "bothros" - a bottomless pit) In general, Greek roots are preferable to Latin since peri- and apo- are Greek affixes. I like "peribothron" much better than "peribarythron" - there is a bottomless pit with this name in mythology. It is also common to talk about the "perigee of the Sun in its orbit around the Earth", since for certain purposes in celestial mechanics this is a useful concept, even if it contradicts the Newtonian picture. Bill Jefferys 8-% Astronomy Dept, University of Texas, Austin TX 78712 (Snail) ihnp4!kpno!utastro!bill (uucp) utastro!bill@utexas-11 (ARPA) ------------------------------ Date: 5 Oct 83 8:00:48-PDT (Wed) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: decvax!duke!crm @ Ucb-Vax Subject: shuttle tanks Oddly enough, it would INCREASE the available payload of the shuttle to leave the disposable tanks in orbit, because the Shuttle must manuever to get rid of the things before it is in orbit, and because the last little bits of fuel could be consumed. DON'T ask me for the math on this -- this is all argument-from-authority from David Brin at San Diego -- who has, by the way, written a couple of good SF novels recently. Brin is a professor of Physics at at (I think) UC San Diego. ------------------------------ Date: 5 Oct 83 8:30:26-PDT (Wed) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: decvax!duke!phs!jtb @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: sri-arpa.12203: Re: Space Station Politics (reusing exte There is a group in Ca. which is either private or state sponsored called the Ca. Space Institute (I think, can anybody provide more info?) which is examining low cost missions such as reusing external tanks. One of the conclusions they came to was that it takes more fuel to manuver so that the tank ditches in the right place than it would take to carry it into orbit. Jose Torre-Bueno decvax!duke!phs!jtb ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 10-Oct-83 0303 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #6 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts at MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 6 Today's Topics: Re: ETs to orbit Re: Elevators - (nf) Re: re: space colonization - (nf) Re: naming stars space commercialization Spacelab Mission Threatened By Faulty Booster Re: Elevators ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 6 Oct 83 21:52:36-PDT (Thu) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: harpo!eagle!karn @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: ETs to orbit In-Reply-To: Article sri-arpa.12229 I don't understand how it would actually save energy to take an ET all the way to orbit, even if that added energy is relatively small. What you may be thinking of is that the shuttle is limited in the range of launch azimuths (and hence orbital inclinations) that can be reached from Vandenburg because of "external tank disposal problems" (quite a euphemism, eh?) Inclinations between 57 (the upper limit of Kennedy) and 70 degrees (the lower limit of VAFB) are therefore difficult to achieve. However, I don't see why this should be a real problem with a space station, since you'd probably want to put it in a 28.5 deg orbit in order to maximize the launch weight. I seem to remember that STS flights do leave a fair amount of excess fuel in the ET when it is jettisoned. Whether it alone is enough to take both the orbiter and the tank into orbit I do not know. I doubt it. You must remember also that the typical shuttle orbit is EXTREMELY low in altitude. Depending on its orientation with respect to the flight path, the orbiter needs as much as 2 meters/sec/day to maintain a 250 km orbit, the altitude of the upcoming Spacelab mission. The orbiter weighs about 90 metric tons; the empty ET weighs about 33.5 metric tons and has a considerably larger cross sectional area than the orbiter. An external tank left in a 250 km orbit, particularly one without any attitude control, would decay in practically no time at all. This means that if you want to do interesting things with these tanks that you'll have to select missions into much higher orbits than usual. On these high altitude missions the orbiter's payload capacity is already sharply reduced by the need to carry extra OMS fuel, so you can see that things fall apart quite quickly. Actually, the Saturn V wasn't such a bad vehicle after all for launching space stations. Phil ------------------------------ Date: 5 Oct 83 19:30:15-PDT (Wed) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: pur-ee!uiucdcs!mcewan @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: Elevators - (nf) #R:pur-phy:-102900:uiucdcs:12700039:000:347 uiucdcs!mcewan Oct 5 15:20:00 1983 /***** uiucdcs:net.space / pur-phy!piner / 2:03 pm Sep 28, 1983 */ There is a practical problem with elevators too. If your elevator moves at 100 miles per hour. It will take 10 days to reach orbit. Rich Piner Purdue Physics Dept. /* ---------- */ You could say the same thing about the shuttle! Scott McEwan uiucdcs!mcewan ------------------------------ Date: 5 Oct 83 19:36:38-PDT (Wed) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: pur-ee!uiucdcs!uiuccsb!krueger @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: re: space colonization - (nf) #R:sri-arpa:-1199500:uiuccsb:15700005:000:780 uiuccsb!krueger Oct 5 19:37:00 1983 There is at least one more difference between space and land: free fall. Certainly this can be a boon to some technologies, but the effects on biological systems are not completely known (at least to me), especially in long term stays. Sure, people could live in a centrifuge, but how easy is it to make such a gargantuan structure? But don't get me wrong, I would be very excited at the opportunity to live in space (I've already got ideas for an orbiting swimming pool complete with upside-down diving board). On a related note, did those astronaut-ants that went up on one of the recent shuttle missions really die of "old age?" I seem to recall hearing this on "Paul Harvey," but then, I hear a lot of things ... Jon Krueger ...pur-ee!uiucdcs!uiuccsb!krueger ------------------------------ Date: 29 Sep 83 10:55:09-PDT (Thu) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: decvax!linus!philabs!seismo!hao!kpno!ut-sally!utastro!bill @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: naming stars he galactic plane, and the interstellar dust obscures them from our view. A bright supernova in the Milky Way would be a great treat both scientifically and in general. We are overdue. I am grateful to Robert Elton Maas (ucbvax!REM@MIT-MC.ARPA) for pointing out to me that my original submission should have been more precise. Bill Jefferys 8-% Astronomy Dept, University of Texas, Austin TX 78712 (Snail) ihnp4!kpno!utastro!bill (uucp) utastro!bill@utexas-11 (ARPA) ------------------------------ Date: 09 Oct 83 1335 PDT From: Ron Goldman Subject: space commercialization To: space@MIT-MC n025 0930 06 Oct 83 BC-SPACEBIZ By SANDRA BLAKESLEE c.1983 N.Y. Times News Service LA JOLLA, Calif. - When the first Soviet satellite blazed into earth orbit 26 years ago today, many people wondered what practical uses could ever come of going into space. There is plenty to do, according to experts on commercial uses of space, as long as ways are found to reduce the costs of getting there. And it will probably be small new companies with big ideas on how to reduce costs that turn the first profits in space-based businesses. This was the consensus of a meeting held here this week by the California Space Institute, a unit of the University of California that calls itself the ''NASA of the West.'' The symposium Tuesday on ''low-cost approaches to space exploration'' drew 100 representatives from the aerospace industry, academia, banks, small space technology concerns and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. There is a growing national consensus that space commercialization is an idea whose time has come, said the space institute's director, James Arnold, telling the group, ''Our destiny is in space.'' The institute was formed in 1979 by the California Legislature to coordinate space research on the various university campuses and to promote space ventures in behalf of California businesses. Half of NASA's $7 billion budget is spent in California each year, Arnold said. Cal Space has a smaller budget of $2.5 million, he added, which is spent ''catalytically.'' Last year 87 grants were awarded to university scientists in areas such as remote sensing, climate, human adapatation to space, astronomy, astrophysics and space physics. There are numerous opportunities for businessmen in space, Arnold said. The most immediate lucrative market is in the launching of communications satellites. Future markets involve materials processing in a space environment of zero gravity. Several NASA spokesmen described to the entrepreneurs recent government proposals to ''privatize'' space activity. These include building a national space station that companies could use as a space-based industrial park and turning over government-run satellite launching programs to private concerns, Speakers representing large aerospace companies said space program costs had usually run high because NASA always asked, ''Can you do it?'' and the answer was, ''Yes.'' Today, however, NASA asks, ''Can you do it for less money?'' The answer is, ''Not yet,'' according to Robert Salkeld of the Systems Development Corp., adding, ''We're hung with overmature institutions.'' Improvements will come only, he said, with new ideas on spacecraft structure, operations and chemical propulsion systems. Some companies have already begun taking over space projects that NASA would once have kept for itself. This includes the leasing of space aboard orbiting platforms where experiments can be carried out and the ferrying of satellites to and from the manned shuttles. Such projects are to begin about 1987. But it is the new companies with daring ideas that may pioneer the commercialization of space, most conference participants said. For example, Starstruck is a concern with 50 people based in Redwood City, Calif. It plans to build, own and operate a satellite launching service by 1987 that could cut the cost of such services in half. It costs from $30 million to $60 million to launch a satellite today, said Phil Salin, a founder of the company. If competition is to thrive, there is no reason why that cost could not be cut by a factor of 10 in the next 10 to 15 years, he added. Starstruck will reduce costs by burning liquid oxygen and synthetic rubber in its rockets, an idea developed but abandoned in the 1960s, Salin said, and it will launch from the ocean. A rocket would be towed out to sea and fired, he said, which would do away with the need for launching pads. With 80 satellites scheduled to be put into orbit in the next several years, ''a market is there and some people will shop for a bargain,'' he said. Other small concerns at the conference had services to sell. Two offered full packaging of the ''getaway special'' experiments offered by NASA's shuttle program and another described plans to set up a satellite-run location and information transfer system. This would send messages among subscribers in North America using pocket-size ''beepers.'' University professors also suggested ways to save money and promote space enterprise. Lynn Cominsky, a research physicist at the Berkeley campus, said a university group would cut 10 percent from the cost of a NASA satellite mission by doing the work on campus. And Frank Davidson, an engineer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, suggested that Congress form a space grant college system in the tradition of land and sea grant universities. ''We see the moon as the next Klondike,'' said Stewart Nozette, director of macro projects at Cal Space. ''And we believe a new breed of scientist-businessman will get us there.'' nyt-10-06-83 1231edt *************** ------------------------------ Date: 9 Oct 83 2131 PDT From: Ron Goldman Subject: Spacelab Mission Threatened By Faulty Booster To: space@MIT-MC a235 1428 09 Oct 83 AM-Space Shuttle,250 Spacelab Mission Threatened By Faulty Booster CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) - Kennedy Space Center crews went ahead Sunday with plans for a simulated launch of the European Spacelab, even though the Oct. 28 mission could be delayed until next year because of worries about the safety of booster rockets. The crews aimed to hold a mock countdown Monday of the space shuttle Columbia, which is to carry Spacelab 1 into orbit, space center spokesman Rocky Raab said. Space agency officials said last week they were concerned that severe damage to a rocket booster on a shuttle launch in August could recur in one of Columbia's boosters, which are identical. Shortly after launch, exhaust from one of the two solid-fuel boosters on the Challenger burned through the rocket's protective lining and came within a hair of burning through to the booster nozzle. Project manager Bob Lindstrom said Challenger could have careened off course if the exhaust had burned through. Many of the Spacelab experiments depend on seasonal conditions, so a delay of a few days for possible replacement of the Columbia's boosters could scrub the mission for months. The faulty Challenger booster was examined by a space center team over the weekend at the place where it was manufactured, Morton-Thiokol Inc., of Brigham City, Utah. The launch depends on what they find. ''I expect early next week we'll bring all this together,'' Lindstrom said. Spacelab mission is intended to be a showcase of international cooperation. It is co-sponsored by the European Space Agency. ap-ny-10-09 1729EDT *************** ------------------------------ From: digex@ml (Sent by ___004) Date: 10/10/83 04:11:47 digex@ml (Sent by ___004) 10/10/83 04:11:47 To: space-enthusiasts at MIT-MC please remove me from your mailing list ------------------------------ Date: 6 Oct 83 16:08:59-PDT (Thu) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: decvax!genrad!security!linus!utzoo!henry @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: Elevators In-Reply-To: Article <12246@sri-arpa.UUCP> Unfortunately, starting from 200 miles up helps you very little when it comes to achieving orbit. It helps some, but most of the fuel burned by, say, a Shuttle, goes into velocity rather than height. 17000 mph takes a lot of rocket. You definitely want to take the elevator all the way up to Clarke ("geostationary") orbit, so that you are at orbital velocity when you let go. As for the time taken, nobody in his right mind has suggested that the elevators move as slowly as 100 mph. Clarke had his "production" elevator cars highly supersonic even while still within the atmosphere. Given enough power to drive it, a 1000-mph elevator should be straightforward with only minimal upgrades to current technology. (The Space Studies Institute's prototype mass drivers have already demonstrated electromagnetic propulsion at far higher accelerations than a passenger system would ever need -- and the latest one is self-centering, so no guide rails or suspension systems are needed.) -- Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology {allegra,ihnp4,linus,decvax}!utzoo!henry ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 11-Oct-83 0303 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #7 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts at MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 7 Today's Topics: Re: Apollo Questions Re: re: space colonization - (nf) Apollo Questions ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 8 Oct 83 23:32:21-PDT (Sat) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: harpo!eagle!karn @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: Apollo Questions In-Reply-To: Article inuxc.799 The numbers vary somewhat from mission to mission, but here are some approximations. The total mass in earth parking orbit (including the SIV-B and its remaining fuel) was typically 130,000-140,000 kg. The launch weight of the LM was 14,670 kg for the early flights and 16,370 kg for the J-series flights (Apollos 15-17). Typical loaded weights for the Service Module and Command Module were 24,000 kg and 5600 kg, respectively. This gives a total CSM/LM mass so far of 44,270 kg or 45,970 kg. This ignores the launch escape tower (4000 kg) and the launcher adapter (1800 kg) which have been jettisoned by this point. The parking orbit from which TLI was done was typically at 170 to 180 km altitude, extremely low but acceptable since the time spent there was so short. Once TLI was done, Apollo was still in earth orbit, but one with apogee near the moon's orbit. Once in lunar orbit, the mass of the combination CSM/LM was reduced to a typical value of 33,000 kg due to the fuel expended in lunar orbit insertion. All of this data is from "The History of Manned Space Flight" by David Baker. This is a massively detailed, excellently written book; a bargain at $35. I got mine from the Air & Space Museum bookstore and promptly read all 544 9"x13" pages during the Christmas holidays last year. (The pictures are good too.) Phil ------------------------------ Date: 6 Oct 83 19:22:44-PDT (Thu) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: ihnp4!houxm!mhuxi!mhuxj!mhuxl!ulysses!princeton!astrovax!ks @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: re: space colonization - (nf) In-Reply-To: Article <3130@uiucdcs.UUCP> Rumor has it that the "astro-ants" of STS-7 died from dehydration. The project was sponsored by a high school district in Camden, NJ. ------------------------------ Date: 7 Oct 83 6:54:30-PDT (Fri) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: ihnp4!inuxc!fred @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Apollo Questions Questions for you space history buffs. What was the mass of the Apollo space craft at TLI? (Trans Lunar Injection) What orbit was it in at the time of the TLI burn? Fred ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 12-Oct-83 0302 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #8 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts at MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 8 Today's Topics: Re: insects - (nf) - (nf) FWC full scale tests G-forces question Acceleration of Apollo and Shuttle ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 1 Oct 83 23:35:31-PDT (Sat) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: pur-ee!uiucdcs!uiuccsb!davies @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: insects - (nf) #R:sri-arpa:-1199600:uiuccsb:15700004:000:58 uiuccsb!davies Oct 1 21:47:00 1983 one more time: that was one billion insects PER PERSON!!! ------------------------------ Date: 7 Oct 83 18:39:14-PDT (Fri) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: pur-ee!uiucdcs!uiucuxc!markcoe @ Ucb-Vax Subject: - (nf) #N:uiucuxc:2400004:000:13 uiucuxc!markcoe Oct 7 10:12:00 1983 te meZZZZ : ------------------------------ Date: Mon 10 Oct 83 10:15:18-MDT From: Bob Pendleton Subject: FWC full scale tests To: space@MIT-MC.ARPA Development of the carbon fiber SRB ( Solid Rocket Booster ) case for the space shuttle has passed a major milestone. The first tests of a full size FWC ( Filament Wound Case ) segment were completed by Hercules Aerospace recently. All mechanical and bonded joints as well as the case itself have been pressure tested and proved to have a margin of safety of 1.53, NASA requires a 1.4 safety margin. Four full size segments have been wound to date. The system should be test fired early next year. It looks like we can look forward to a a BIG jump in space shuttle payload capacity along about '86. We won't know if FWCs are reusable until after a few tests, but the folks at Hercules claim they will be. Bob P. ------- ------------------------------ Date: 7 Oct 83 11:03:33-PDT (Fri) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: decvax!tektronix!tekmdp!markp @ Ucb-Vax Subject: G-forces question Can someone speak with the voice of authority and compare the G-forces experienced by the shuttle astronauts with those felt by the Apollo astronauts? Did the Saturn-V have a much bigger "kick"? Isn't the shuttle lift-off assembly a lot lighter than the Saturn-V and thus maybe accelerates faster? Mark Paulin ...tektronix!tekmdp!markp ------------------------------ Date: 14 Oct 83 23:13:35-EDT (Fri) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: decvax!tektronix!tekecs!shark!sdb @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Acceleration of Apollo and Shuttle I seem to recall that the Apollo astronauts were subjected to 8 G's. The Shuttle boosts at about 3 G's. There is an interesting trade-off in that: higher G boosts are more efficient in fuel, so payload is increased. On the other hand, you have to build your payload stronger and brace it better, which is parasitic and a pain to boot. Also, I wouldn't be surprised if it is harder to build engines tat run at the higher boost - and making them multi-shot wuld be even harder. Steve Den Beste ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 13-Oct-83 0304 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #9 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts at MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 9 Today's Topics: Deadly Von-Neuman Probes Acceleration of Apollo and Shuttle FWC Space Station Decision Re: What is a deadly Von Neuman probe? space commercialization - (nf) Re: Re: ETs to orbit STS-9 Could Be Delayed Mock Countdown/Liftoff ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 10 Oct 83 1026 EDT (Monday) From: Kevin.Dowling@CMU-CS-A To: space@mit-mc Subject: Deadly Von-Neuman Probes Message-Id: <10Oct83.102648.KD0K@CMU-CS-A> There is a series of SF books by Saberhagen dealing with such self-replicating machines called "Beserkers". Apparently the offshoot of a war between two races elsewhere in the galaxy, their goal is to destroy life. They mutate and assume different large forms, and are sentient. There are many short stories in the Beserker series which I found more enjoyable than the longer novellas. Apparently, humans are too unpredictable for the Beserkers, and can hold their own. The Beserkers are self-replicating but mutations can (and do) occur. There are some NASA reports dealing with self-replication, and the possibilities inherent in that concept. kevin (nivek@cmu-ri-rover) ------------------------------ Date: Wednesday, 12 October 1983 10:43:45 EDT From: David.Smith@CMU-CS-IUS To: space@mc Subject: Acceleration of Apollo and Shuttle Message-ID: <1983.10.12.14.17.41.David.Smith@CMU-CS-IUS> The Shuttle was designed to limit acceleration to 3 G's, so astronaut qualifications could be reduced (e.g., sending Walter Cronkite along). Unfortunately, the acoustic stress in the payload bay is worse than with liquid rockets, so a shuttle launch is not really more benign for the payload. Arianespace stresses this. The 8 G figure for Apollo may be true, but that is peak acceleration just prior to stage burnout. Shuttle throttles down to keep down to 3 G's as fuel burns off, whereas Saturn engines were not throttleable. As for average acceleration (which may not be as important as peak), Atlas-Mercury got to orbit in 5 minutes, Saturn-Apollo in 8, and Shuttle in 10. Shuttle jumps off the pad faster than Saturn, Titan, or Atlas. This is characteristic of solid fuel rockets, which build up thrust much more rapidly. However, the Saturn engines were ignited about 9 seconds before the tiedown clamps were released, so it is conceivable that other factors are operating besides rapid thrust build-up. On the topic of taking external tanks to orbit: the OMS burns required to take the orbiter into stable orbit after jettisoning the tank amount to about 350 feet per second, which is pretty small considering that the tank has already been lugged to over 25000 fps. David Smith ------------------------------ Date: 12 Oct 1983 1643-PDT Subject: FWC From: TOM MCGUINNESS POSTAL-ADDRESS: TOM MCGUINNESS,SMC 2147,, NPS, MONTEREY,CA 93940 Phone: (Home) 408-899-1312 (NPS office) 408-646-2174/5 AV 878-2174/5 Anybody want to explain the difference between the two types of SRB's? I know that FWC has a greater weight savings but is there also more thrust? T. M. ------------------------------ Date: 12 Oct 1983 16:51:06 PDT From: METH@USC-ISI Subject: Space Station Decision From Aviation Week and Space Technology October 10, 1983, Page 17. Development of a space shuttle orbiter capabitily for missions of 20-30 days in connection with a more slowly paced US space sta- tion buildup will be floated as a compromise position between space station advocates and station foes. Defense Dept.'s posi- tion on an extended orbiter development is more favorable than some managers have characterized it earlier (AW&ST Oct. 3, p. 19). Paul Thayer, deputy secretary of Defense, has written NASA Administrator James H. Beggs that, "To the extent that a more permanent presence of man in space might contribute to satisfac- tion of national security goals, we believe a more promising approach is to extend the capability of the space shuttle." A station development could require NASA budgets of $18-20 billion per year by the early 1990s with $3 billion per year required for station development alone in the late 1980s. With such potential costs there are managers in the station decision process who intend to urge President Reagen to opt for a longer-paced devel- opment as opposed to a 1991 station target date. ------------------------------ Date: 13 October 1983 01:51 EDT From: Robert Elton Maas Subject: Re: What is a deadly Von Neuman probe? To: hplabs!hao!kpno!ut-sally!utastro!bill @ UCB-VAX cc: SPACE @ MIT-MC Oh, so that's what a "deadly Von Neuman probe" is? Well, I'm not too worried. Generally creatures survive better if they try to use other lifeforms to their advantage than if they destroy all other lifeforms on sight. I rather doubt a dVNp would have much chance of surviving long enough to dominate the Galaxy. I suspect other non-deadly VNps would make better use of the resouces and fill the Galaxy faster. Then when there's no more room to expand and the two VNp races begin competing for the finite Galaxy, the non-deadly VNp race will develop some defense against the dVNp, putting it on par militarily, and the greater ability of the non-deadly VNp to use existing resources will give it the edge in the gallactic war. Regarding a biological race that programs its probes deliberately to destroy all other lifeforms; it's rather easy for a mutation to cause that kind of probe to fail to recognize the race that made it, or for mis-design to cause it to recognize an alien race mistakenly. In the former case, the original race would be exterminated; this likelihood would tend to deter that race from making such a probe in the first place. In the latter case, that alien race would likely be able to kill off the dVNps, ridding the galaxy of them long before we humans came to be (unless by accident the dVNps were created at about the same time we humans came to be; very unlikely). ------------------------------ Date: 13 October 1983 02:13 EDT From: Robert Elton Maas Subject: space commercialization To: ARG @ SU-AI cc: SPACE @ MIT-MC One thing that seems obvious to me is that the best way to get something to space is to divide it into the part that's expensive per unit mass (irreplacable stuff like people too) and the part that's cheap to replace, send the expensive/irreplacable part via an expensive but reliable means such as STS or Saturn/Atlas/Aegena, and send the bulk part via cheap unreliable rockets like Connestoga or via mass-drivers etc. Then the two payloads must be assembled in space, which requires either a manned (oops, personned) space station or a remote-control tug. I wonder if a solar-powered tug could be used to move empty STS fuel tanks and random payloads to a high orbit where it could fasten them together in a bundle for later assembly and use? The tug could be a mass-driver, ion rocket, or sailship. Would these technologies have sufficient accelleration to overcome air friction during the first state of recovering a payload from very-low-Earth-orbit? ------------------------------ Date: 13 October 1983 02:22 EDT From: Robert Elton Maas Subject: - (nf) To: pur-ee!uiucdcs!uiucuxc!markcoe @ UCB-VAX cc: SPACE @ MIT-MC Here's the complete verbatim text of a message in the SPACE digest. I think something's missing!! Date: 7 Oct 83 18:39:14-PDT (Fri) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: pur-ee!uiucdcs!uiucuxc!markcoe @ Ucb-Vax Subject: - (nf) #N:uiucuxc:2400004:000:13 uiucuxc!markcoe Oct 7 10:12:00 1983 te meZZZZ : ------------------------------ Date: 10 Oct 1983 19:03-PDT From: dietz%usc-cse%USC-ECL@MINET-NAP-EM To: space@mit-mc Cc: harpo!eagle!karn@Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: Re: ETs to orbit Via: Usc-Cse; 11 Oct 83 17:39:04 Someone's probably said this already but... The reason it saves energy to take the ET to orbit is that to put the ET into a special suborbital trajectory into the Indian ocean the orbiter has to be put (briefly!) into that same orbit. After releasing the tank the shuttle has to push on to orbit with the OMS engines. The shuttle is forced to follow a rather strange trajectory to dump the tank, actually losing altitude at one point (down to 100 km, I believe). Saving the tank lets you go to orbit on the SSME's, which are LH/LOX powered and thus have higher specific impulse than the OMS engines. Drag is the big problem. NASA doesn't want the continual Skylab-type hysteria that randomly falling ET's would provoke. Using the SSME's instead of OMS will get you to higher orbits for the same fuel mass. Ideally the tanks would immediately be dismantled or incorporated into some space structure. The tank could be placed in a higher orbit quite cheaply by raising it on a kevlar line with the shuttle on the bottom. The ET would be equiped with a winch to reel in the line after the shuttle let go. ------------------------------ Date: 9 Oct 83 8:00:50-PDT (Sun) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: harpo!eagle!allegra!alice!alb @ Ucb-Vax Subject: STS-9 Could Be Delayed Unexpectedly high damage to one of the SRB's on STS-8 could force the postponement of STS-9 until next year. On the ascent of Challenger in late August, the exhaust from the booster eat through the booster's protective lining to within .2 inches of the nozzle itself. If it has broken through the nozzle, the shuttle would have gone out of control. The boosters, which are being reused from previous flights, are refurbished by Morton-Thikol, Inc., which reported the damage to NASA late last month. Agency officials decided to go ahead with the rollout of Columbia to the pad and carry on simultaneous investigations of the problem. If the launch is delayed more than a few days, it would have to be postponed until February, 1984, due to seasonal requirements for some of Spacelab's experiments. Getting a new set of boosters would take several weeks. ------------------------------ Date: 10 Oct 83 16:38:04-PDT (Mon) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: harpo!eagle!allegra!alice!alb @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Mock Countdown/Liftoff At 1230 EDT today, a mock countdown was started for the Columbia. It is scheduled to conclude tomorrow with a simulated liftoff of the shuttle. Included in the rehearsal are tests of the Columbia's hydraulic systems and new fuel cells. ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 14-Oct-83 0302 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #10 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts at MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 10 Today's Topics: Simulated Countdown ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 11 Oct 83 20:03:53-PDT (Tue) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: harpo!eagle!allegra!alice!alb @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Simulated Countdown NASA crews today took the Columbia through a simulated countdown after a two hour delay due to a fuel leak. The test, in which both the oxygen and hydrogen sections of the external tank were to be filled with super-cold liquid fuels, was instead carried out with only the oxygen tank filled with liquid oxygen and the hydrogen tank filled with gaseous hydrogen; the problem was due to a leak in a hydrogen fuel line. ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 15-Oct-83 0303 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #11 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts at MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 11 Today's Topics: New SSI Project Re: spending spree O'Neill's new book Launch Doubts ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 14 Oct 1983 10:47:23-EDT From: Marty.Uram at CMU-RI-FAS Subject: New SSI Project The following is a letter sent from Gerald K. O'Neill, President of the Space Studies Institute, to Institute members, dated October 5, 1983: Dear Friend: I want to report to you on a major new initiative SSI (Space Studies Institute) is undertaking and to ask your help to move this project forward. The Institute Directors will issue a request for proposals for the parametric design of a Solar Power Satellite (SPS) in the next two months. This SPS design will be based on ease of assembly using automated equipment and, most importantly, will utilize lunar-derived materials for its construction period. This project, as exciting and important as it is, will seriously strain SSI's financial resources. That's why I'm asking you to make a special gift of $25 or $15 to help fund the SPS Design Project. Let me explain. The drive toward space colonization will be helped enormously if the economics of space manufacturing are proven attractive. In turn, the economies of space are tied to the questions of energy changes: Where can raw materials be found? What is the energy cost of moving this material from the source to the site of use? How are the materials to be separated into pure elements? For what purposes are they to be used? SSI has addressed the first three questions through its research into the Mass-Driver and Chemical Separation of Lunar Materials. Now, the Board of Directors has authorized the Institute to show an economical way to tap the virtually limitless and free energy available in high orbit. That's the purpose of our new research effort into Solar Power Satellites. A power satellite in geosynchronous orbit above the equator would convert the intense, nearly full-time sunlight of high orbital space to low-density radio waves (with an efficiency above 90%), then send them to receiving antenna on Earth. The plant's fuel cost will be zero, so the entire cost of power will be that of amortization, maintenance and distribution. The design of an SPS, based on construction from lunar materials, is the most crucial research project in SSI's first five-year plan to develop the resources of space. Its success is vital to our achieving an energy source capable of sustaining a suitable working and living environment away from Earth. Our plan is to circulate a "Request For Proposals" to aerospace firms and researchers this winter. Our contract will be to develop a design and specification for a Solar Power Satellite that could be built using lunar material and would recover its cost through sales of power at market rates. Will you help get this important project started by making a special gift to SSI in either amount I mentioned? Your tax-deductible gift will be used to help fund the SPS research. This has been a highly productive year for the Institute with the completion of two major projects and our Sixth Biennial Conference on Space Manufacturing. However, our financial resources have been depleted. Our choices are either to postpone the SPS design project and make serious cuts in our contact with Members and operation, or to ask SSI's loyal Members to help supplement our budget by making a special gift to our Solar Power Satellite project. Simply complete the enclosed form and return it to me at the SSI office in Princeton. In return, I'll keep you informed of the SPS design competition and let you know of the Board's decision. Please accept my thanks in advance for your continuing support of SSI's important work. Sincerely, Gerald K. O'Neill President, Space Studies Institute 195 Nassau Street P.O. Box 82 Princeton, New Jersey 08540 Tel: 609 921 0377 P.S.: If you make a gift of $100 or more, I'll send you a special, limited edition blueprint of the Island One Space Colony. This drawing shows the exact dimensions of the Bernal Sphere, designed to sustain 10,000 inhabitants in space. ------------------------------ Date: 11-Oct-83 00:24 PDT From: William Daul - Tymshare Inc. Cupertino CA Subject: Re: spending spree To: gutfreund.umass-cs@Rand-Relay Cc: arms-d@mit-mc, politics@mit-mc, ellis.umass-cs@Rand-Relay Cc: space@mit-mc Message-ID: <[OFFICE-2]TYM-WBD-3C2WC> If anyone has further information on the DoD spending spree, I would love to hear it? Does anyone know what they spent $4.2 Billion dollars on? Thanks, --Bi<< ------------------------------ Date: 27 Sep 83 20:45:39-PDT (Tue) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: ihnp4!fortune!kiessig @ Ucb-Vax Subject: O'Neill's new book Has anyone heard any details about Gerard O'Neill's new book? I understand it's going to hit the streets pretty soon. Rick ------------------------------ Date: 11 Oct 83 20:05:18-PDT (Tue) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: harpo!eagle!allegra!alice!alb @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Launch Doubts NASA today declined to make a decision regarding the launch of STS-9, opting instead to wait a few more days until more tests results from the damaged STS-8 SRB are obtained. However, one official said that hopes for a 28 October launch date were becoming more and more pessimistic. ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 16-Oct-83 0302 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #12 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts at MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 12 Today's Topics: NASA anniversary Re: G-forces question Halley's Comet Will Be Brighter This Time ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 11 Oct 83 18:21:18-PDT (Tue) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: hplabs!hao!seismo!philabs!linus!utzoo!henry @ Ucb-Vax Subject: NASA anniversary NASA's 25th anniversary is the 23rd of October. This might be a good time to watch for things like space-station announcements. -- Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology {allegra,ihnp4,linus,decvax}!utzoo!henry ------------------------------ Date: 11 Oct 83 17:03:58-PDT (Tue) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: hplabs!hao!seismo!philabs!linus!utzoo!henry @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: G-forces question In-Reply-To: Article <2284@tekmdp.UUCP> The Shuttle boosts much more gently than the Saturn V. Saturn V accelerations just before staging were 7-8 G. The Shuttle gives a maximum of 3 G. This is quite deliberate, to make life easier for both people and payloads. I believe the shuttle throttles its engines back at times to stay under the 3-G line. The Saturn V's engines basically had one throttle setting: wide open. It is somewhat more efficient to boost at high acceleration, because you finish acceleration sooner and hence use less fuel fighting gravity during boost. (In case this isn't obvious, consider an extreme case: if you boost at just slightly more than 1 G, you go up very slowly and spend most of your fuel just keeping yourself from falling.) But high-G boost is much harder on payloads and their support structures, and one specific intent of the shuttle was to make payloads cheaper by providing a less severe environment during boost. It also complicates crew selection; it is reasonable to assume that any healthy adult can take 3 G, but 7 G is nastier. -- Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology {allegra,ihnp4,linus,decvax}!utzoo!henry ------------------------------ Date: 12 Oct 83 4:00:59-PDT (Wed) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: ihnp4!ihuxb!alle @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Halley's Comet Will Be Brighter This Time Pasadena, Calif. [AP] - Halley's Comet will be five to six times brighter than previously predicted when it swings by Earth again in 1986, two researchers say. Charles S. Morris and John G. Bortle said at a recent cometary astronomy conference at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory that previous brightness calculations were inaccurate because they were based on observations from 1910, the last time the comet streaked through the solar [sic] system on its 76-year orbit. Scientists initially thought Halley's [comet] would be barely visible to the naked eye, but Morris and Bortle predict it could be as bright as Polaris, the star that marks magnetic north. Astronomers who tracked Halley's [comet] in 1910 weren't as expert in the technicalities fo celestial observation, particularly measuring light, and modern astronomers who used their data didn't consider those limits. Halley's will pass inside Pluto's orbit in late 1985, pass closest to the sun on Feb. 9, 1986 and should remain visible through April, 1986, when it heads back into the stars for another 76 years. ************************************* >From the Chicago Tribune - October 9, 1983. Allen England at AT&T Bell Laboratories, Naperville, IL ihnp4!ihuxb!alle ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 17-Oct-83 0302 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #13 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts at MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 13 Today's Topics: Shuttle Mission 9/Spacelab 1 Comet Halley SRB Tests Inconclusive Solar power satellites IRAS discoveries More info on Soviet rocket accident Story from the news wire: ASAT ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 19 Oct 83 22:45:48-EDT (Wed) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: ihnp4!drux3!hogpc!houca!orion!hou5f!hou5e!hou5d!mat @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Shuttle Mission 9/Spacelab 1 The October 10 issue of Aviation Week and Space Technology carries the second in a series of articles about Columbia/STS 9/Spacelab 1. I am sure that this has all been covered before, but I thought I would review some points. First, the mission is scheduled initially for 10/28, with usable windows through 11/5. The mission is scheduled for eight days with an optional extension of up to two additional days. After a maximum length flight, Columbia would land with only two pounds of hydrogen remaining. The mission is endangered by a problem with the SRBs (see below). If it is scrubbed, Spacelab 1 will have to wait until February. Landing will be at Edwards rather than Kennedy. EAB was chosen over the KSC landing site because the orbiter will be more than 19,000 lb heavier than on any previous landing. Additionally, landing at KSC makes the presence of Heads-Up-Displays on the orbiter highly desireable. Columbia does not have HUDs. Columbia will carry six men. I believe that this is the greates number of men (people) ever sent up in a single launch. Can someone confirm or refute this? Spacelab is scheduled for round-the-clock operations with two shifts. Neither shift will be without an experienced spaceman. This will be the first mission scheduled for round the clock work -- either US or Soviet. There are 190 orbiter manuevers scheduled. Spacelab 1 will carry 38 experiments, both in the laboratory and outside it in the payload bay. There are seperate communication systems and ground crews for the mission and the scientific experiments, with the highest transmision of any US manned flight. There are about thirty different telemetry formats! The relatively new TDRS (Tracking & Data Relay Satellite) system will be essential in getting the data up and down. All in all, this is a pretty big flight. Unfortunately it is in jeopordy. Wear on the nozzle of one of the Solid Rocket Boosters (SRBs) has far exceeded expectations and design limits. There is very little protective material left on one side of the nozzle on one of the SRBs. Morton Thiokol is studying the problem, but the last report that I heard is not encouraging. The mission may have to await new SRBs and a new launch window in 2/84. Among the possibilities: The damage to the engine might be a fluke (unlikely) in which case STS 9 can fly with what is has now. It might be possible to fit a new (factory-fresh?) engine to STS 9 which is apparently already assembled. An aside: Anyone care to speculate how long it will be before we have a reuseable launch vehicle whose thrust will exceed the nearly 7,800,000 lb produced by the Saturn V ? Or how long it will be before we have a reusable launch vehicle that can retrieve a satellite from geosynchonous orbit? Mark Terribile Duke of deNet ------------------------------ Date: 13 Oct 83 3:44:44-PDT (Thu) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: harpo!floyd!vax135!ukc!dgd @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Comet Halley I thought Halley had already passed inside Saturn's orbit ? The comet will pass on the wrong side of the Sun (!) for it to produce a spectacular apparition here but at least the herd of space probes that are planned to intercept it should give us lots of interesting data. DGD ...!vax135!ukc!dgd ------------------------------ Date: 13 Oct 83 3:32:01-PDT (Thu) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: harpo!eagle!allegra!alice!alb @ Ucb-Vax Subject: SRB Tests Inconclusive Tests on the faulty STS-8 SRB were inconclusive this week, NASA said, and hopes for a 28 October launch are becoming very dim. If postponed, the next available date would be 28 November, and after that, sometime next February. ------------------------------ Date: 16 Oct 1983 09:06:05-EDT From: Howard.Gayle at CMU-CS-G Subject: Solar power satellites Solar power satellites have some very serious drawbacks, essentially because because they are "hard" energy systems in the sense of Lovins [1977]. Here are a few of the drawbacks: 1) O'Neil discusses a 5 GW (to the grid) satellite [O'Neil 1982, p. 178], which is large by present standards. Sunlight is not continuous at GEO year-round, and a satellite might fail, so a backup is necessary, which about doubles the cost. 2) The rectenna might fail (lightning, weather, earthquake, sabotage, etc.), so again a backup is needed. 3) Historically, "safe" exposure limits to radiation and chemicals have decreased much more often than increased. A satellite designed for a certain beam energy density may turn out to be "unsafe" a few years later. A few years ago, most experts believed the only biological effect of microwave radiation was from tissue heating. There is now evidence of other effects at much lower doses [IEEE 1983]. 4) Just uttering the word "radiation" will cause protesters to appear. A satellite project could be tied up in lawsuits for years, however irrational the basis of the suits. 5) The rectenna will feed high voltage lines. People don't like high voltage lines [Mains 1983]. Again there will be protests, lawsuits, and perhaps sabotage. 6) A power satellite is a sitting duck. A foreign government could easily threaten to destroy it. 7) Recent history shows the danger of dependence on an energy supply far away. What happens when the Organization of Power Exporting Colonies raises prices a few hundred percent? 8) The U. S. really has enough electricity for electrochemistry, motors, lighting, and certainly electronics. There are much simpler and "softer" ways to provide space and process heat. The real crunch is in liquid fuels for transportation, and more electricity won't help there, at least in the short term. Electric cars are still waiting for a breakthrough in batteries, and I don't know of any research on electric airplanes. Hydrogen is a long way off, and suffers from a huge PR problem (the "Hindenberg syndrome"). The U. S. wouldn't even need much additional electricity if it built a high speed electrified railroad system, since regenerative braking is fairly efficient. By contrast, there are ethanol-fueled airplanes flying now. 9) Providing the U. S. with massive amounts of new energy will only delay for a few generations the inevitable population, resources, and environmental disasters. We'll be better off if we deal with those problems now, while there's still a reasonable amount of land, water, and air left. I believe space colonization is vital to human survival, but we will have to find a reason other than power satellites. REFERENCES IEEE 1983: "Experiments show microwaves can damage chromosomes," IEEE Institute, volume 7, number 8, August, pages 1 and 8. Lovins 1977: Soft Energy Paths: Toward a Durable Peace, Amory Bloch Lovins, Harper and Row, New York. Mains 1983: "The Minnesota power-line wars," Sheldon Mains, Spectrum, volume 20, number 7, July, pages 56-62. O'Neil 1982: The high frontier: human colonies in space, Gerard K. O'Neil, Anchor Press, New York. ------------------------------ Date: 16 Oct 83 1733 PDT From: Ross Finlayson Subject: IRAS discoveries To: space@MIT-MC n516 2013 15 Oct 83 BC-SPACE-10-16 By Robert Cooke (c) 1983 Boston Globe (Independent Press Service) BOSTON - Spectacular new results from the talented IRAS satellite - including exciting evidence that many stars, like our sun, are surrounded by rocky debris - is being held up by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). Astronomers contacted at several observatories and universities report there's ''a high level of frustration'' that the IRAS data are available, but won't be released until Nov. 9 at a special news conference and party at the National Air and Space Museum in Washington. The first solid clue that a big announcement is coming arose during an astronomy symposium last week here in suburban Cambridge, where Dr. Charles Beichman, from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California, commented simply that ''Vega is not alone.'' Beyond that, scientists associated with the IRAS (for Infra-Red Astronomy Satellite) have refused to discuss the results, even among their fellow astronomers. Beichman's statement, however, told astronomers that in addition to our own solar system, and in addition to the cloud of debris found orbiting the bright star Vega, IRAS has also detected other stars that have similar haloes of material. ''We took it to mean there are other examples'' of such stars found by IRAS, one astronomer said. And, since Vega is ''a pretty typical star, that probably means there are a lot more of them.'' The importance of the discovery of numerous stars with potential solar systems is that it suggests the formation of planets is probably a common event. And if planets are common, life, too, may be common in the universe. The IRAS satellite, which was launched just last January, is so good at spotting relatively cool, dim objects because it can ''see'' infra-red light. This long-wavelength light - in essence, heat signals - is blocked by the Earth's atmosphere, so ground-based astronomers are unable to see infra-red objects. In space, orbiting 500 miles above Earth's surface, IRAS can look unimpeded into the distant reaches of space and pick out the faint glow of objects that emit their energy in the infra-red portion of the spectrum. In addition to discovering the cloud of debris around Vega, IRAS has also: - Found more new comets in shorter time than any observer in history. - Observed two giant galaxies passing so close to each other that both are being torn apart by the pull of gravity. - Spotted areas of intense activity in distant galaxies where new stars are apparently being born. Unfortunately, however, IRAS is soon to become useless. The spacecraft's ability to see infra-red light depends on its image-sensing element - 62 crystals of silicon-germanium - being cooled to almost absolute zero. The sensor is kept cold by a flow of liquid helium, and the supply of helium was expected to last only seven months. Scientists reported, however, that the liquid helium has lasted longer than expected, so they're hoping to get a full year of observing out of the IRAS instrument. Among IRAS's discoveries, the most stunning thus far has been the cloud of objects orbiting the star Vega, located in the constellation The Lyre. Vega, one of the brightest stars in the sky, is nestled inside the Milky Way, and estimated to be about 26 light years (or 150 trillion miles) from Earth. The Vega discovery provided the first firm evidence that solid objects - which may range from buckshot size up to the size of small planets - are in orbit around a star other than the sun. In addition, Vega is thought to be a relatively young star - only 1 billion years old compared to 4.6 billion years for the sun - so its cloud of debris may be a solar system in the process of forming. Astronomers are interested in such systems, because finding numerous examples may help solve the riddle of how our own solar system formed. And, of course, it says we may not be alone. END nyt-10-15-83 2312edt ********** ------------------------------ Date: 16 Oct 83 1734 PDT From: Ross Finlayson Subject: More info on Soviet rocket accident To: space@MIT-MC n026 0934 16 Oct 83 BC-SOYUZ By JOHN F. BURNS c.1983 N.Y. Times News Service MOSCOW - The Soviet spacecraft involved in an explosion on a launching pad late last month carried two astronauts, not three as previously believed, and the men are recuperating at a medical complex near the launching site, a Soviet official said Saturday. The official said the astronauts, whom he described as ''veterans'' of the space program, were not seriously injured but had needed medical attention for the effects of the acceleration they experienced as emergency rockets blew their capsule clear of the exploding A-2 launching vehicle. The official, who declined to be identified, said the escape rockets had subjected the astronauts to a stress in excess of 10 times the force of gravity as they blasted clear of the exploding launcher. He said the force of the acceleration could be judged from the fact that the escape capsule rose to a height of ''several thousand'' yards and landed by parachute nearly three miles from the launching site in central Asia. The official said the Soviet authorities originally intended to give a public account of the accident but reversed their decision for reasons that were not known to him. The official said the details available to him had come from direct contacts with senior personnel in the mission control center outside Moscow. The first accounts of the accident came from United States intelligence sources, apparently relying on satellite reconnaissance. They said the accident occurred Sept. 27 at the Baikonur launching site in Kazakhstan, where all manned Soviet flights begin. The American accounts said that some 300 tons of liquid fuel carried by the booster rocket exploded at ignition but that the astronauts had succeeded in blasting clear. Some Soviet accounts in recent days had suggested that the crew included a woman, but the official who spoke Saturday said this was definitely not so. He said that the launching site had been destroyed in the blast and fire but that nobody on the ground had been injured. He also said the accident had not endangered the safety of the two-man crew of the Salyut 7 laboratory now in orbit. The assertion that only two men were aboard the endangered craft lent support to the original U.S. intelligence account, which said the astronauts were to have replaced Vladimir Lyakhov and Aleksandr Aleksandrov, the astronauts sent into orbit in the Salyut craft June 27. When three-member crews have been involved, they have generally acted only as visitors to the Salyut laboratory. American accounts have suggested that weakening batteries on the Soyuz ferry craft attached to the Salyut might force an early return unless a fresh crew could be quickly sent up with a new Soyuz vehicle. nyt-10-16-83 1234edt ********** ------------------------------ Date: 16 Oct 83 2339 PDT From: Ron Goldman Subject: Story from the news wire: ASAT To: space@MIT-MC n519 2036 15 Oct 83 BC-WEAPON-3takes-10-16 A NEWS ANALYSIS By Fred Kaplan (c) 1983 Boston Globe (Independent Press Service) WASHINGTON - Some time very soon (the date is classified), the United States will test a new weapon system that promises to burst through a new threshold in the arms race - a race for military supremacy in outer space. It is a race that will be unimaginably expensive; it will be almost impossible to turn back once it has commenced; and even if the weapons involved work the way they are supposed to, the nation will be less secure in the end. The new weapon seems deceptively harmless at first glance: a 12-by-13-inch cylinder, loaded with telescopes and infrared sensors, attached to a two-stage rocket small enough to fit under an F-15 jet fighter. The drama - and potential danger - lies in what this small package is designed to do. It's called a Miniature Homing Vehicle (MHV), and the idea is to fly the F-15 almost vertically up to the edge of the atmosphere, then fire the MHV into outer space, where it will home in on - and kill - an enemy satellite. If the first few tests of the MHV system succeed, we may find ourselves propelled, almost inexorably, toward a new era of military conflict. Maj. Gen. John H. Storrie, director of space for Air Force Plans and Operations, told a House committee last March: ''Space is a place; it is not a mission. We are going to continue to do the things in space that we do in the atmosphere and on the ground and on the seas'' - that is, to prepare to fight and win wars. A study signed last year by the Air Force Chief of Staff, titled ''Air Force 2000,'' calls for ''space superiority,'' which requires ''the capability to destroy hostile space systems.'' Already, both the United States and the Soviet Union - especially the United States - depend on space for a wide variety of military missions. Most of what we know about the Soviet military, especially about their nuclear weapons, comes from satellites. A great deal of military communications, command-control networks, navigational aids and other support systems are also channeled through satellites. Moreover, Maj. Gen. Bernard Randolph, director of Air Force Space Systems, has testified that a ''major'' objective of U.S. space plans is ''to expand our military capabilities in space.'' But, critics say, the more we rely on military platforms in space, the more incentive the Soviets will have to develop their own advanced anti-satellite (ASAT) weapons, thus making our military command network increasingly vulnerable. ''Right now,'' according to Paul Stares of the Brookings Institution, ''if we lose our space systems, we'd be hurt but not crippled. But if we continue to increase our dependence on space systems, then we're just digging a hole for ourselves.'' There's one way out of this hole - and that is to negotiate an ASAT arms-control agreement with the Russians. Yet after our forthcoming ASAT tests, this may be impossible. Air Force officials have testified that it will take only six hours to install an MHV ASAT system on an F-15 fighter anywhere in the world, at a cost of only $632,000 per plane. Says Stares, ''There's no way the Russians could have confidence that every F-15 isn't carrying an ASAT. What are we going to do? Paint the F-15 different colors if it has an ASAT mission?'' An unfortunate element in all this is that right now may be the best time for getting ASAT arms-control negotiations under way. To see why requires a brief digression into history. The United States was the first to develop an ASAT system. From 1963 to 1967, the Army tested some of its Nike-Zeus ABMs as satellite killers. From 1964 to 1968, the Air Force fired Thor missiles at deactivated satellites in outer space in what was called the ''Squanto Terror'' tests (or, in a lower key, ''Program 437''). This program was kept alive until 1975. Not until 1968, well after the Air Force had declared Program 437 ''operational,'' did the Soviets start up their own ASAT program. The Soviets' system is substantially more unwieldy than either the U.S. programs of the 1960s or our forthcoming MHV plan. Their scheme was to launch a ''killer satellite'' into an orbit that crosses an enemy satellite and then to blow up the killer, destroying the enemy spacecraft with shrapnel. Over the next 14 years, the Soviets conducted 20 tests. They have used two different types of guidance systems. One directs the killer-satellite by shining a radar beam on the target. The other is more passive, with infrared systems that seek out the target by the heat it generates. According to John Pike of the Federation of American Scientists, the Russians tested the radar-seeker version 14 times, most recently in 1981, of which 10 were successes. However, more recently, they tested the passive infrared-seeker version six times - and all six were duds. Even the 10 successes had their limitations. They were all conducted at low altitudes, whereas most U.S. satellites - including all early-warning satellites - are stationed at very high altitudes. They were also conducted within very narrow angles or inclinations (from 60 to 66 degrees), making it difficult to approach even the low-altitude American satellites. Stephen Meyer of MIT concludes, ''They've really never had a test of what it would be like going against a real U.S. target.'' From 1977 to 1981, the Soviets stopped testing ASATs. Over part of that period, the United States and the U.S.S.R. held three sets of talks on negotiating an ASAT arms-control agreement. Then came the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and the death of SALT II - and the ASAT talks faded away. Last August, Soviet leader Yuri Andropov announced a moratorium on all ASAT testing, and Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko submitted an ASAT arms-control proposal to the United Nations, with terms that seem to indicate seriousness. One obvious reason for Andropov's offer is a realization that the United States is about to come out with a new ASAT system that will probably be much more successful than the Soviet model. Indeed, administration officials have dismissed the idea of negotiations precisely because Andropov has proposed them. The reasoning: His fear of our ASAT only confirms that it can give us an edge in the arms race. But this is shortsighted, and not just because it lessens the likelihood of an arms-control treaty. If the United States goes ahead and tests its new ASAT weapon, the Soviets will undoubtedly break the moratorium and resume their own testing - and probably develop a better weapon than the one they have now. This will provoke us to upgrade our system. And the race will be on. From here, any number of scenarios can be imagined: The United States or the U.S.S.R. (or both) develops an ASAT that can potentially strike satellites at high altitudes as well as low altitudes, thus endangering the all-important early-warning satellites. The other side then develops a system - perhaps involving laser weapons - that can attack this new ASAT system. Or perhaps it develops a space-based battle station that can defend the satellites in the same way, say, that a task force of escort ships defends an aircraft carrier. Then the other side builds weapons that can attack the defenders. And on it goes. Indeed, this scenario is precisely what some people have in mind. Although the U.S. Miniature Homing Vehicle program dates back to 1978, its most ardent supporters view it as a wedge into the whole panoply of space weapons - some on the drawing boards, some as yet only sparks and glimmers in the minds of technocratic enthusiasts - that falls under the rubric of ''Star Wars.'' The Star-Wars advocates tasted their first dose of legitimacy last March, when President Reagan told a nationwide TV audience of his ''vision of the future.'' He held out the ''hope'' that a network of anti-ballistic missiles (ABMs), space lasers and battle stations - based on decades of research - would ''intercept and destroy (Soviet) strategic ballistic missiles before they reached our own soil or that of our allies.'' For years, a fringe element - led by Sen. Malcolm Wallop (R-Wyo.) in Congress, Edward Teller and Gen. (ret.) Daniel Graham in the military-scientific community and several others in various bureaucracies and think-tanks - has been keen on moving the arms competition into space. A very small group within the Air Force, recently reorganized into a Space Command, believes that space can be ''The New High Ground'' (as Thomas Karas calls it in his book that chronicles this community), from which the U.S. can reign supreme in all other arenas of warfare. Reagan's speech, which was heavily influenced by talks with Teller, gave this group the legitimacy it has long sought. Almost at once, ''Beltway bandits'' (as the ring of consulting firms around Washington is popularly termed) and others put in contract bids to study ''the military utility of space.'' More important, the subject became a high-priority issue inside the national-security bureaucracy. Over the summer, three major outside studies were commissioned on the subject. At this moment, an interagency group - consisting of officials from the State Department, the Pentagon, the National Security Council and the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency - is drawing up evaluations of those studies to present to the president within the next month. Officials involved in the studies and the interagency meetings say that nobody now knows how to go about even beginning to build a Star-Wars system. Says one Pentagon official, ''At this point we have no consensus on what it all means... I don't think we have the kind of answers that we could base any sort of policy on.'' In any case, officials are discovering technical problems that may be insurmountable. A ground-based laser wouldn't work through clouds. Even Gen. Randolph of Air Force Space Systems told a House committee last spring that a space-based laser would require 10 megawatts of power (some say much more) and would weigh 150,000 pounds - well beyond the transport capacity of the Space Shuttle. To provide even ''a thin ABM capability,'' he said, we would need 50 to 100 of these systems. Furthermore, they must have perfect accuracy: He likened the mission to pointing a beam ''from the Washington Monument to a baseball on the top of the Empire State Building and hold(ing) it there while both of you are moving.'' Then there's the cost. Air Force studies estimate it as $500 billion. An analyst on one of the government-sponsored study groups puts it as high as $1.2 trillion. And that probably would not be the end of it. Officials and analysts point out that the Russians could ''spoof'' any space-based ABM system much more cheaply than it would take us to build one. Just a few techniques: Cover the surface of a missile with a mirror that reflects the laser beam; jam the communications between the space system and the ground-control station; shoot it down with a laser beam yourself. As one official puts it, ''If it can shoot down a ballistic missile, why can't it shoot down its twin brother?'' Still, the interagency group will not advise Reagan to abandon the Star-Wars idea. ''This is the president's program,'' says one skeptical official. ''We can't tell the president that he's got a nutty idea.'' Instead, they will probably recommend that the military spend the next several years doing research on whether these problems can be overcome. Even this will cost quite a bit of money. For example, Robert S. Cooper, director of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), testified last spring that the ''Space Laser Program Plan,'' which will merely ''bring us to a point where we can make reliable planning estimates of weapon development costs and schedules,'' will cost $900 million. Other basic research of this sort could cost as much as $4 billion a year - maybe more - for several years; and even then, nobody will know very much more than before. All of which leads some analysts to wonder whether it is sensible to start treading down this seemingly endless road to begin with. Though the ASAT program and the Star-Wars scheme have different origins, the road to the latter can begin with the former. In fact, the kind of technology needed for advanced ASAT systems - tracking mechanisms, sensors, beams and so forth - is quite similar to the technology needed for shooting down ballistic missiles. And the logic of the ASATcounter-ASAT arms race provides a grand opportunity for the Star-Wars brigade to bring in their programs through various side or rear entrances if they end up getting locked out of the front door. The Reagan administration, however, is drawing no connections between ASAT and Star Wars. There is an interagency group dealing with Star Wars and another dealing with ASAT - but they are composed of different people and the two never meet. Similarly, the group concerned with ASAT is contemplating various arms-control ideas, but, according to officials, no one has seriously considered delaying the ASAT test until after these ideas have been fully explored. In short, an historic opportunity to halt a whole new age in the arms race is being neglected, indeed scorned. It wouldn't be the first time. In 1970, to cite just the most recent parallel, the United States deployed the Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile. It incorporated new technology called MIRVs (Multiple Independently targetable Reentry Vehicles), which allowed one missile to carry several warheads, each of which could be guided to separate targets. Before MIRVs, a first-strike destroying the other side's land-based missiles was impossible: One missile could hit only one enemy missile; if one side built extra missiles, the other side could counter by building more too. However, with MIRVs, a single missile could (theoretically) destroy several enemy missiles. Thus, if the United States and the U.S.S.R. acquired MIRVs, both sides would be at once capable of destroying the other's land-based missiles and vulnerable to such an attack themselves. Some U.S. officials favored proposing a ban on MIRVs during the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks. But this was rejected because others felt MIRVs gave us a strategic edge over the Russians. Four years later, the Soviets deployed their own MIRVs, and now the same people who opposed a MIRV ban a decade ago decry the Soviet MIRVs, which they claim have made our Minuteman missiles vulnerable. The most interesting strategic arms-control proposal of recent years - offered by Rep. Albert Gore Jr. (D-Tenn.) - calls for getting rid of MIRVs. But it's probably too late. Henry Kissinger told reporters in 1974, ''I would say in retrospect that I wish I had thought through the implications of a MIRVed world more thoughtfully in 1969 and 1970 than I did.'' Kissinger was dissembling: His former NSC aides say that MIRVs were thoroughly studied, that Kissinger knew exactly what their implications were from the beginning, but went ahead with them anyway - to gain a strategic edge. It's the same with the upcoming ASAT test and indeed all the growing political pressure for at least elements of the Star-Wars plan. Even more than before, the administration is failing - even refusing - to think through the implications before the world changes in ways it may later regret. END nyt-10-15-83 2345edt *************** ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 18-Oct-83 0303 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #14 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts at MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 14 Today's Topics: Video Disk of Space Shuttle Missions Re: Story from the news wire: ASAT Re: Solar Power Sattelites ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 17 Oct 1983 0624-PDT Sender: WMARTIN at OFFICE-3 Subject: Video Disk of Space Shuttle Missions From: WMartin at Office-3 (Will Martin) To: space at MIT-MC Message-ID: <[OFFICE-3]17-Oct-83 06:24:01.WMARTIN> I saw an ad in the Oct 83 issue of VIDEO BUSINESS, a magazine for video equipment dealers, that might be of interest to the readers of SPACE. I know nothing about this except what is in the ad, excerpts from which follow: Soar above the competition! Offer your customers a CAV laser videodisc passport to the "High Frontier"... an astronaut's view of the historic flights of America's Space Shuttle. SPACE SHUTTLE Mission Reports: STS 5, 6 & 7 SPACE SHUTTLE is Volume 1 of SPACE ARCHIVE (tm) -- a new series being launched into the consumer market by Video Vision Associates, Ltd., producers of the highly acclaimed SPACE DISC (tm) series. SPACE SHUTTLE contains more than 800 color photos (with printed guide) and 55 minutes of stunning video clips. The suggested retail price is $39.95. Discs will be ready for shipping to dealers in October. Video Vision will underscore its committment to distinctive video products with the release of additional programs, computer and audio tape interfaces and software that expand the interactive potential of laser videodiscs. Vendor's address: Video Vision Associates 7 Waverly Place Madison, NJ 07940 (201) 377-0302 {Hope this is of interest to some of you -- Will Martin} ------------------------------ Date: 17 Oct 83 17:41:21 PDT (Monday) From: Hamilton.ES@PARC-MAXC.ARPA Subject: Re: Story from the news wire: ASAT To: Ron Goldman cc: Space@MIT-MC.ARPA, Hamilton.ES@PARC-MAXC.ARPA Thanks for sharing this story. I wonder how much longer the American public is going to put up with "NEWS ANALYSIS" that might as well have come straight out of the Soviet embassy. Who is Fred Kaplan? Just what is "Independent Press Service"? (That's almost as good as "nonaligned nations"). I'm not even going to waste my time picking apart what any reader should see as a blatant propaganda piece. --Bruce ------------------------------ Date: 17 Oct 1983 20:44-PDT From: dietz%usc-cse%USC-ECL@MINET-NAP-EM To: space@mit-mc Cc: Howard.Gayle@cmu-cs-g Subject: Re: Solar Power Sattelites Via: Usc-Cse; 17 Oct 83 21:38:03 Responses to Gayle's objections to SPS: Sunlight is not continuous at GEO year-round, and a sattelite might fail, so a backup is necessary, doubling the cost. Not serious objections. The earth's shadow intercepts GEO less than 1 hour per night near the equinoxes. The interruption occurs during a time of minimal energy usage, so it should be easy to make up for. As for backups: if you only built ONE SPS a backup would double the cost. Even at 5-10 GW's this country can use many powersats, and because rectennas are not highly directional only a few backup SPS's are needed for high reliability. Since SPS's produce an essentially constant power output their economics can probably be improved by some form of ground-based energy storage (fuel cells, batteries, pumped hydro) to cover daily cycles in energy demand. This storage system could buffer short interruptions in the power beam, allowing backup sattelites to cut in their beams. The power beams are aimed electronically so the backup could be brought on in seconds. The rectenna might fail, so a backup is needed. Clearly this problem also applies to current technology, yet we manage to cope. If a rectenna (or a nuclear power station, or whatever) fails, extra power is obtained from your neighbors. By the way, rectennas have no moving parts, are highly distributed and are extremely reliable. Performance degrades incrementally as receiving diodes fail. The circuits for converting DC to AC are well understood and are reliable. If you worry about terrorism, consider that terrorists need only blow up a few high voltage lines to black out all of New York City for weeks. No one has done it yet. Historically, "safe" exposure limits to radiation and chemicals have decreased much more often than increased. A sattelite designed for a certain beam energy may turn out to be "unsafe" a few years later. Intensity of the power beam is gaussian; it is bounded above by exp(-c*r^2), where c is a constant and r is the distance from the center of the rectenna. The power intensity at the edge of the rectenna is the same as that *outside* a microwave oven; the intensity a few miles further out is exponentially less. I haven't read your reference r.e. chromosome damage, have the results been confirmed? In the worst case the utility need only buy some additional land around the rectenna to reduce possible exposure of passers-by to immeasurable levels. The power beam is not pulsed; there is some evidence that pulsed microwaves are more dangerous than unpulsed microwaves. Just uttering the word "radiation" will cause protesters to appear. So? This will have little if any effect. Powersats aren't fission plants. Anyway, if SPS is as economical as it appears to be someone somewhere will build them (Japan?). Anyone stuck with other energy sources will go into economic decline, or, more probably, buy powersats from the other person. People don't like high voltage power lines. And therefore we don't have any, right? A power sattelite is a sitting duck. Something in GEO is hard to destroy, except by another government. That is an act of war. Missiles would certainly start flying. The attacker would rationally strike first with his missiles. Who cares about the SPS then? Re dependence on far away energy source: the problem is that SOMEONE ELSE OWNS THEM. Presumably if XYZ Corp. (or Con. Ed.) builds an SPS, it owns it. Your final objections: (1) we don't need electricity (we need other fuels), and (2) it will just put off the ecological crunch a few decades. Over long time scales electricity can easily substitute for other energy sources (if the others become scarce/expensive), and (2) *all* other energy sources are more polluting than SPS. Only massive increases in world energy consumption can substanitally raise the standard of living, averting nuclear war, mass starvation, etc. ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 19-Oct-83 0303 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #15 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts at MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 15 Today's Topics: Re: Solar Power Satellites SPS SPS Re: Solar Power Sattelites Re: Halley's Comet Will Be Brighter This Time Geostar & Star Wars PAC Re: Solar Power Sattelites microscopic particles around sun?? space elevators space elevators Re: Story from the news wire: ASAT ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tuesday, 18 October 1983 09:54:00 EDT From: Howard.Gayle@CMU-CS-G To: Space@MIT-MC cc: dietz%USC-CSE.USC-CSE@Rand-Relay Subject: Re: Solar Power Satellites Message-ID: <1983.10.18.12.36.0.Howard.Gayle@CMU-CS-G> I thank Dietz for a careful reply to my post concerning solar power satellites. Obviously, there is uncertainty about many of the technical details on which a working system would depend. But, before discussing technicalities, I emphasize that power satellites are not an entirely technical problem. Fundamentally, the difference between what Lovins calls "hard" and "soft" energy systems is the difference of local control. Proponents of "soft" systems argue that energy is too vital to be controlled remotely or centrally, that local control is essential even if it is economically suboptimal. I think that I am the best person to decide the right temperature for my apartment, not someone in Washington, Riyadh, or GEO; I'm prepared to pay for that opinion. It is also unclear how energy is related to standard of living. Norway, for example, has an extremely high standard of living, yet relatively moderate energy consumption for a developed country. It may be that "[o]nly massive increases in world energy consumption can substanitally [sic] raise the standard of living, averting nuclear war, mass starvation, etc." On the other hand, E. F. Schumacher and the other proponents of "appropriate technology" claim that the best way to achieve economic development is through low capital, low energy technology. As far as nuclear war is concerned, the greatest danger is from countries with high energy consumption. As for mass starvation, you can't eat electricity. You can, of course, produce massive amounts of artificial fertilizer and pesticides, but this just postpones the starvation one or two population doubling times, after which you find the fertilizer runoff has polluted lakes and rivers, and the pests have become resistant to the pesticides. "As for backups: if you only built ONE SPS a backup would double the cost. Even at 5-10 GW's this country can use many powersats..." Exactly. A whole constellation [is that the appropriate collective noun?] of power satellites would be needed for reliability, so it would not be economical to have a diversity of electricity sources. Satellites would necessarily be most of the eggs in our basket. "Intensity of the power beam is gaussian..." That may be a good model in a vacuum, but what does the beam look like after it's been scattered by the ionosphere and the atmosphere? Obviously nobody knows. The power is much greater than communications satellite downlinks. There may be nonlinear effects. "Something in GEO is hard to destroy, except by another government." That's certainly true today. Fairly soon, several private companies should be able to put a few hundred kilograms into GEO. "Re dependence on far away energy source: the problem is that SOMEONE ELSE OWNS THEM. Presumably if XYZ Corp. (or Con. Ed.) builds an SPS, it owns it." Britain owned its American colonies. GEO is an order of magnitude farther away. Nobody likes an absentee landlord. "Over long time scales electricity can easily substitute for other energy sources..." True. Let's start some research on electric airplanes and electric launch vehicles. Then, in 50 years or so, we can take another look at power satellites, with most of the numbers in hand. Until then, I'd like to survive the Pittsburgh winter. ------------------------------ Date: 18 Oct 83 10:51:50 EDT From: JoSH Subject: SPS To: space%MIT-MC@MIT-ML.ARPA With regard to the message from Howard Gayle about SPS-- I suggest that Mr. Gayle consider "alternative information sources" than Amory Lovins, who is an idiot [Access to Energy, May 82]. The major drawback to SPS (drawback once it is in operation, as distinguished from difficulties that must be overcome to implement it) is the ground area necessary for the rectenna. The energy density of the beam in current plans (and required by federal regulations) is less than that of direct sunlight, (340 watts per square meter in one design, where sunlight can attain 1 kW/m^2). In densely populated areas (where the power is needed the most) such as New Jersey, land is expensive. Indeed, solar power advocates of all stripes would do well to remember that land is the ultimate non-renewable resource. Let's consider Howard's points: 1) ... Sunlight is not continuous at GEO year-round, and a satellite might fail, so a backup is necessary, which about doubles the cost. This is silly. Any power generation facility "might fail", and all undergo scheduled outages. This is why they are tied together in a "grid". Individual facilities go "off-line" quite often. 2) The rectenna might fail (lightning, weather, earthquake, sabotage, etc.), so again a backup is needed. A rectenna would cover many square miles and have thousands of individual antennas. Try convincing your friends, "Pittsburgh might fail, so a backup is needed." 3) Historically, "safe" exposure limits to radiation and chemicals have decreased much more often than increased. A satellite designed for a certain beam energy density may turn out to be "unsafe" a few years later. ... As mentioned above, the energy density of the beam is on the order of half that of sunlight. With sophisticated measuring technology, you will discover that everything is dangerous. 4) ... A satellite project could be tied up in lawsuits for years, however irrational the basis of the suits. This is unfortulately all too true. You can help by learning the facts, and refuting the lies and distortions of the crazies. And what happens when people realize that conventional means of power generation are even more dangerous? 5) The rectenna will feed high voltage lines. People don't like high voltage lines ... ANY power plant feeds high voltage lines. Whatever the merits of this apparently frivolous argument, it does not affect SPS per se. 6) A power satellite is a sitting duck. A foreign government could easily threaten to destroy it. It's much easier to destroy a city or an ordinary power plant on the ground. Anybody with the ability to hit something in GEO would have no trouble hitting any point on the surface. 7) Recent history shows the danger of dependence on an energy supply far away. What happens when the Organization of Power Exporting Colonies raises prices a few hundred percent? We send them to bed without supper. The SPS (at least the ones we're takling about) are an American project. Of course, if we wait until we're dependent on foreign satellites... 8) The U. S. really has enough electricity for electrochemistry, motors, lighting, and certainly electronics. ... This is silly. The cheaper electricity is, the more will be used, and the more ways found to substitute it for other resources. The more expensive it, and other forms of energy, are, the more other resources will be substituted for them (and benefits forgone). The goal of the "soft energy" advocates is a world in which all major energy sources have been replaced by human drudgery and misery. 9) Providing the U. S. with massive amounts of new energy will only delay for a few generations the inevitable population, resources, and environmental disasters. ... If you look at the countries that are in fact population, resources, and environmental disasters, you will find them to be soft energy paradises, like India, where most of the work is done by human muscles. How organic! The birthrate, you will find, is inversely correlated with the consumption of energy per capita. Using SPS in the O'Neill (not "O'Neil") plan will expand our available resources radically (mining the moon) and curtail the expenditure of terrestrial resources (oil, uranium, coal) for power generation. Indeed, O'Neill sees SPS as primarily a way to make space colonies economically feasible. Although I suspect that the cost projections of SPS advocates are probably overoptimistic, I support them for that reason. --JoSH ------- ------------------------------ Date: 18 Oct 83 10:51:50 EDT From: JoSH Subject: SPS To: space%MIT-MC@MIT-ML.ARPA With regard to the message from Howard Gayle about SPS-- I suggest that Mr. Gayle consider "alternative information sources" than Amory Lovins, who is an idiot [Access to Energy, May 82]. The major drawback to SPS (drawback once it is in operation, as distinguished from difficulties that must be overcome to implement it) is the ground area necessary for the rectenna. The energy density of the beam in current plans (and required by federal regulations) is less than that of direct sunlight, (340 watts per square meter in one design, where sunlight can attain 1 kW/m^2). In densely populated areas (where the power is needed the most) such as New Jersey, land is expensive. Indeed, solar power advocates of all stripes would do well to remember that land is the ultimate non-renewable resource. Let's consider Howard's points: 1) ... Sunlight is not continuous at GEO year-round, and a satellite might fail, so a backup is necessary, which about doubles the cost. This is silly. Any power generation facility "might fail", and all undergo scheduled outages. This is why they are tied together in a "grid". Individual facilities go "off-line" quite often. 2) The rectenna might fail (lightning, weather, earthquake, sabotage, etc.), so again a backup is needed. A rectenna would cover many square miles and have thousands of individual antennas. Try convincing your friends, "Pittsburgh might fail, so a backup is needed." 3) Historically, "safe" exposure limits to radiation and chemicals have decreased much more often than increased. A satellite designed for a certain beam energy density may turn out to be "unsafe" a few years later. ... As mentioned above, the energy density of the beam is on the order of half that of sunlight. With sophisticated measuring technology, you will discover that everything is dangerous. 4) ... A satellite project could be tied up in lawsuits for years, however irrational the basis of the suits. This is unfortulately all too true. You can help by learning the facts, and refuting the lies and distortions of the crazies. And what happens when people realize that conventional means of power generation are even more dangerous? 5) The rectenna will feed high voltage lines. People don't like high voltage lines ... ANY power plant feeds high voltage lines. Whatever the merits of this apparently frivolous argument, it does not affect SPS per se. 6) A power satellite is a sitting duck. A foreign government could easily threaten to destroy it. It's much easier to destroy a city or an ordinary power plant on the ground. Anybody with the ability to hit something in GEO would have no trouble hitting any point on the surface. 7) Recent history shows the danger of dependence on an energy supply far away. What happens when the Organization of Power Exporting Colonies raises prices a few hundred percent? We send them to bed without supper. The SPS (at least the ones we're takling about) are an American project. Of course, if we wait until we're dependent on foreign satellites... 8) The U. S. really has enough electricity for electrochemistry, motors, lighting, and certainly electronics. ... This is silly. The cheaper electricity is, the more will be used, and the more ways found to substitute it for other resources. The more expensive it, and other forms of energy, are, the more other resources will be substituted for them (and benefits forgone). The goal of the "soft energy" advocates is a world in which all major energy sources have been replaced by human drudgery and misery. 9) Providing the U. S. with massive amounts of new energy will only delay for a few generations the inevitable population, resources, and environmental disasters. ... If you look at the countries that are in fact population, resources, and environmental disasters, you will find them to be soft energy paradises, like India, where most of the work is done by human muscles. How organic! The birthrate, you will find, is inversely correlated with the consumption of energy per capita. Using SPS in the O'Neill (not "O'Neil") plan will expand our available resources radically (mining the moon) and curtail the expenditure of terrestrial resources (oil, uranium, coal) for power generation. Indeed, O'Neill sees SPS as primarily a way to make space colonies economically feasible. Although I suspect that the cost projections of SPS advocates are probably overoptimistic, I support them for that reason. --JoSH ------- ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 18 Oct 83 10:11 PDT From: BollenG.ES@PARC-MAXC.ARPA Subject: Re: Solar Power Sattelites To: dietz%usc-cse%USC-ECL@MINET-NAP-EM.ARPA cc: space@mit-mc.ARPA, BollenG.es@PARC-MAXC.ARPA Excellent response! I would only add one comment. Although it is extremely important to examine the negative effects of large projects such as SPS, we should never abandon an obviously profittable undertaking simply because it will cause public uproar. If governments and institutions and individuals avoided doing anything that was controversial, we would still be living in Europe, in a Feudal government, dealing with overpopulation, plague, and, of course heartily pooh-poohing the idea of sailing to the other side of the world. Space-based power has its drawbacks. Yet the problems are small compared to the advantages. A permanent human presence in orbit is the next step towards stepping across space. Granted, earth is looking at an upcoming ecological & social crunch. The tools to solve these problems probably are not to be found by examining the problem in the confinement of the earth. Man needs to explore to find those answers. Space is the way to go. I just hope that the economics of power and industry drive us in the direction that we must go. ------------------------------ Date: 18 Oct 83 10:49:47 PDT (Tuesday) From: Lynn.es@PARC-MAXC.ARPA Subject: Re: Halley's Comet Will Be Brighter This Time In-reply-to: ihnp4!ihuxb!alle's message of 16 Oct 83 03:02 PDT To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC.ARPA cc: Lynn.es@PARC-MAXC.ARPA I thought AP could do better than this. The article quoted is full of misinformation. 1. "previous brightness calculations were inaccurate because they were based on observations from 1910" I was at that conference and I did not understand Morris and Bortle to say why the brightness calculations were inaccurate. They avoided the details, apparently because they are publishing their findings. I assume that their reasoning is similar to that of Joseph Marcus, editor of Comet News Service. In a recent article, he stated that in past times astronomers did not standardize on methods of determining comet brightness, and it has been shown that different methods that have been in use in the past give different results. 2. "the last time the comet streaked through the solar [sic] system" The limits of the solar system are not formally defined. But the reasonable definitions include all of Halley's Comet's orbit, so it is always in the solar system. For example, if we use the farthest distance of the farthest planet (Pluto at the extreme of its quite elliptical orbit) we get a 49.3 AU radius of the solar system. Halley's Comet's farthest point from the sun is 35.3 AU. 3. "Polaris, the star that marks magnetic north" Polaris is within a degree of true north, not magnetic north. The magnetic north pole, along with the rest of the earth, rotates daily so that the point above it in the heavens it sweeps out a circle. So no fixed point in the sky, much less a star, could possibly mark magnetic north. 4. "Astronomers who tracked Halley's [comet] in 1910 weren't as expert in the technicalities fo celestial observation, particularly measuring light" Most comet brightness measurements today are still made by eye (not photoelectric devices) through small telescopes. Astronomers have been making such measures quite as accurate as those of today for hundreds of years. I believe we will find, when Morris and Bortle publish, that the problem they refer to is simply one of standardization of method. Method is very important with comets because one has to compare brightness that is spread out over an area (the comet) with brightness of a pinpoint of light (stars used for comparison). 5. "Halley's will pass inside Pluto's orbit in late 1985" The comet never went outside Pluto's orbit. Their orbits are in different planes, and so the orbits do not cross, strictly speaking. Even if we use a loose interpretation of "pass inside" to mean that the projection of the comet's orbit onto the ecliptic (the plane of the earth's orbit, which is close to the plane of all planets' orbits; It is the reference from which astronomers measure everything in the solar system) crosses the projection of Pluto's orbit, the orbits still don't cross in this sense. The (projection of the) comet's orbit lies entirely inside (the projection of) Pluto's orbit. Or take a simpler sense of "pass inside" -- when the distance from the sun to the comet is less than Pluto's average distance. Then the comet is still always inside of Pluto's orbit. The comet has in fact already passed inside of (in either of the above senses) the orbits of Neptune, Uranus, and Saturn. 6. "it heads back into the stars for another 76 years" Again, it never leaves the solar system, which is hardly "into the stars". Its maximum distance from the sun is in fact 1/7700 of the distance to the very nearest star. It really irks me to see such botched information go out in the popular press. Those of us fascinated with space exploration can use all the publicity we can obtain to get the public excited about these things, but this kind of junk seems counterproductive. /Don Lynn. ------------------------------ Date: Tuesday, 18 October 1983 17:13:26 EDT From: Howard.Gayle@CMU-CS-G To: Space@MIT-MC Subject: Geostar & Star Wars PAC Message-ID: <1983.10.18.20.30.12.Howard.Gayle@CMU-CS-G> Two quotes from the 21 October 1983 issue of Science, page 304: [A] private company in Princeton, New Jersey, is trying to establish itself in the very same [navigation satellite] marketplace. This is Geostar, headed by Gerard O'Neill, a particle physicist, advocate of space industrialization, author of the book 2081, and president of the Space Studies Institute in Princeton. With self-assurance, he says that Geostar---still a concept more than a tangible thing---will not compete with Navstar because it will be so much better and cheaper. O'Neill is reluctant to discuss his project just now, for he has applied to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) for a special allocation of radio frequencies, and the period of public comment is still running. When the docket closes later this fall, he plans to hold a press conference and announce the (presumably favorable) results of a test in California intended to simulate the Geostar system. As disclosed in the FCC docket, Geostar would consist of three satellites in geostationary orbit, a ground station with massive computing facilities, and thousands of small transponders operating at microwave frequency. The latter would be used not just by airplanes (O'Neill thinks this will be less than 10 percent of the market) but by rail cars, trucks, and ordinary autos. The fundamental difference between this system and Navstar is that Navstar requires very sophisticated, nontransmitting analytical equipment in each receiver, while Geostar puts all the sophistication into the ground station. Users would communicate with the station through ``stupid'' but noisy transponders, each costing in the range of $200 to $400, according to O'Neill. Another important distinction is that Navstar would tell the receiver its own location, while Geostar would give this information to the receiver and a central tracking office. ---Eliot Marshall Comments: it would be a lot easier for Geostar to charge user fees than Navstar or Navsat. The price sounds great, but I'm not sure I want a ``central tracking office'' to know where I am. I hope the frequencies aren't absorbed too heavily by water molecules: aircraft would need the system most when flying through clouds. ----- A PAC FOR STAR WARS The innumerable political action committees already gearing up for Campaign 84 were joined last week by a new one: the American Space Frontiers Committee (PAC), dedicated to making a program of space-based missile defense known as the High Frontier strategy ``the prime defense issue in the 1984 elections.'' The new PAC intends to help finance the campaigns of people who support its goals. The High Frontier strategy, which was conceived well before President Reagan's ``Star Wars'' speech of 23 March, is the brainchild of retired Army Lieutenant General Daniel O. Graham, former head of the Defense Intelligence Agency, director of High Frontier, Inc., in Washington, and chairman of the new PAC. Graham's program would start with a ground-based missile defense system around MX silos (thereby contravening the 1972 treaty restricting antiballistic missiles), and then over the next 10 to 15 years evolve toward a global system of 432 killer satellites that would destroy hostile ICBM's with infrared-homing missiles, or perhaps with laser or particle-beam weapons. In addition, Graham's $35-billion plan calls for solar power satellites, a high-capacity space shuttle, and a military space station with provisions for ``fly-along'' of civilian experiments. Graham, like Reagan, sees this kind of orbital defense system as an alternative to the current defense strategy of Mutual Assured Destruction. His theme---``A strategy of Hope for Americans and Free People Everywhere''---seems to have struck a chord. President of the new PAC is Robert Dornan, formerly a Republican congressman from California and before that a talk-show host in Los Angeles. The host committee for the PAC's inaugural breakfast meeting on 29 September included such luminaries as former astronaut Buzz Aldrin, science fiction author Robert A. Heinlein, Senator Jesse Helms (R--N.C.), the Reverend Jerry Falwell, Admiral Thomas Moorer, Clair Booth Luce, and Phyllis Schlafly. Already, the new PAC has raised some $100,000 toward its goal of $1 million. ---M. Mitchell Waldrop Comment: Phyllis Schlafly?! ------------------------------ Date: 18 October 1983 22:53 EDT From: Robert Elton Maas Subject: Re: Solar Power Sattelites To: dietz%usc-cse%USC-ECL @ MINET-NAP-EM cc: SPACE @ MIT-MC, Howard.Gayle @ CMU-CS-G I'm in favor of SPS, but I must point out a minor logical flaw in your argument about microwave safety. You say the power level at the edge of the rectenna is the same as outside a microwave oven. You fail to mention that microwave ovens are used perhaps an hour a day at the most, usually much less, whereas the SPS will be beaming down 24 hours a day. Thus I would expect the accumulated exposure of somebody on the edge of the rectenna to be a couple orders of magnitude greater than the accumulated exposure of an average microwave-oven owner and still 24 times as much as worst-case microwave-oven owner. The accumulated exposure in a town ten miles away from a ten-mile-diameter rectenna would still be much stronger than a microwave-oven owner would receive. I think the exposure would still be safe, but needs further analysis to be sure. ------------------------------ Date: 18 October 1983 22:59 EDT From: Robert Elton Maas Subject: microscopic particles around sun?? To: SPACE @ MIT-MC On the front page of the October 15 issue of the Peninsula Times-Tribune there's a computer enhanced photo of the Sun during June's total eclipse in Indonesia, showing "a giant ring of microscopic dust particles circling the sun ... 600,000 miles wide and hovers 900,000 from the sun's surface". But the globs shown in the picture are as large as the planet Jupiter, hardly microscopic. Is this a giant fraud, or what?? ------------------------------ Date: 18 October 1983 23:22 edt From: SSteinberg.SoftArts at MIT-MULTICS Subject: space elevators Sender: SAI-relay.SoftArts at MIT-MULTICS To: space at MIT-MC Original-date: 4 October 1983 19:07 edt Local: space at MIT-MC *from: SSteinberg.SoftArts at MIT-MULTICS This is just to make sure I understand the physics of these things. If in the initial state the object is sitting on the surface of the earth with potential energy U0 and a kinetic energy due to the earth's rotation of E0 and they wind up in earth orbit with a potential energy of U and a kinetic energy at orbital velocity of E then: U0 + E0 + X = U + E where X is the energy which must be supplied by the space elevator in some form. In other words the space elevator needs X energy (solar, structural, chemical, ... ) to operate. Furthermore in an idealized situation this X is the same X as would be involved in the equations for a conventional rocket launch. I imagine that the space elevator has a number of advantages: - the energy expenditure can be distributed better which allows a better control of the forces of the launch - this energy control also allows for a more efficient imparting of energy - the space elevator could be much safer than a rocket based system - the space elevator avoids many of the problems with atmospheric resistance early in the flight I don't know how many of these are true nor do I know what the major elevator arguments really are since a lot of semi-physics (no calculations yet) gets bandied about. Since a lot of sensible people feel that the elevator is a good idea perhaps someone could point out the main reasons it is preferable. If my initial statement of physics is incorrect I would appreciate a better description of how this thing works than is made available in the popular press. Yours for the space station, Seth ---(2)--- ------------------------------ Date: 18 October 1983 23:22 edt From: SSteinberg.SoftArts at MIT-MULTICS Subject: space elevators Sender: SAI-relay.SoftArts at MIT-MULTICS To: space-enthusiasts at MIT-MC Original-date: 4 October 1983 19:07 edt Local: space-enthusiasts at MIT-MC *from: SSteinberg.SoftArts at MIT-MULTICS This is just to make sure I understand the physics of these things. If in the initial state the object is sitting on the surface of the earth with potential energy U0 and a kinetic energy due to the earth's rotation of E0 and they wind up in earth orbit with a potential energy of U and a kinetic energy at orbital velocity of E then: U0 + E0 + X = U + E where X is the energy which must be supplied by the space elevator in some form. In other words the space elevator needs X energy (solar, structural, chemical, ... ) to operate. Furthermore in an idealized situation this X is the same X as would be involved in the equations for a conventional rocket launch. I imagine that the space elevator has a number of advantages: - the energy expenditure can be distributed better which allows a better control of the forces of the launch - this energy control also allows for a more efficient imparting of energy - the space elevator could be much safer than a rocket based system - the space elevator avoids many of the problems with atmospheric resistance early in the flight I don't know how many of these are true nor do I know what the major elevator arguments really are since a lot of semi-physics (no calculations yet) gets bandied about. Since a lot of sensible people feel that the elevator is a good idea perhaps someone could point out the main reasons it is preferable. If my initial statement of physics is incorrect I would appreciate a better description of how this thing works than is made available in the popular press. Yours for the space station, Seth ---(2)--- ------------------------------ Date: 18 Oct 83 13:59:12 PDT (Tue) From: Katz.uci-750a@Rand-Relay Return-Path: Subject: Re: Story from the news wire: ASAT To: Hamilton.ES@Parc-Maxc Cc: Ron Goldman , Space@Mit-Mc, katz.Uci-750a@Rand-Relay In-Reply-To: Your message of 17 Oct 83 17:41:21 PDT (Monday). Via: UCI; 18 Oct 83 17:03-PDT I thought we had enough of attacking the speaker, instead of what he says. The article may have been long and may have left out quite a bit which one would like for balance, but it did not sound like a blatant propaganda piece. This piece is an interesting complement to other pieces in the news, and as such is interesting. I believe that you are correct in that it is probably not good journalism and I would hate to think of people making decisions about ASATs solely on the basis of such reporting. On the other hand, I also think it is important for people to get this kind of perspective in addition. Maybe what we need is a summary of that paper which includes only the vital facts which were not covered in the recent Scientific American article, with an addendum describing the classes of faults in the news wire article (e.g. Overlooking the dynamics of negotiation). ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 20-Oct-83 0302 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #16 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts at MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 16 Today's Topics: More on solar power satellites SPS Re: space elevators Secrecy at NASA; Things to come ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wednesday, 19 October 1983 08:02:34 EDT From: Howard.Gayle@CMU-CS-G To: Space@MIT-MC cc: dietz%USC-CSE.USC-CSE@Rand-Relay Subject: More on solar power satellites Message-ID: <1983.10.19.11.38.6.Howard.Gayle@CMU-CS-G> Once again, I thank Dietz for putting his finger precisely on the problem: I get the feeling reading your objections that you have started with the idea that SPS is bad because it is large and are trying to justify that belief. This is nearly a correct summary of my views. I like to think I am a conservative engineer. I object to any energy supply system which is not conservative, in the engineering sense of the word. "Hard" systems all depend on very large, complex devices and on applied and in some cases basic research which has not yet been done. "Soft" systems depend on well understood, proven technology like insulation and microhydro. I am not opposed to big or risky projects per se. I support space colonization, lunar and asteroid mining, the Desertron, etc. But for energy supply, which literally means the difference between life and death, I think it is reckless to pin our hopes on unproved technology or on systems where a single failure could be disastrous. ------------------------------ Date: Wed 19 Oct 83 14:31:19-MDT From: Bob Pendleton Subject: SPS To: space@MIT-MC.ARPA I'm not very worried about the technical problems of SPS, they look solvable to me. As for the area and isolation needed for the rectenna, you could put one in the Utah salt flats with no problem, no one near by, not much of an ecology, just many square miles of salt. If you MUST have rectennas near major cities why not float them 20-30 miles off shore? Most of the really big cities are near an ocean. The main problem I see is the possiblity of power sats being negotiated away in arms limitation talks. This may sound a little crazy, but people are talking about putting gigawatt lasers in orbit, those lasers have to get power somewhere. The whole "star wars" "high frontier" concept could be negotiated away and power stats with it. Not to mention that I'm paranoid enough to think someone has already come up with a whole list of military applications for a high energy microwave beam. Oh, well. As to developing electric airplanes and space shuttles, seems to me we already have. Given enough electricity water can be converted into liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen, very nice fuels, thank you. Bob Pendleton ------------------------------ Date: 19 Oct 83 12:52:29 PDT (Wednesday) From: Lynn.es@PARC-MAXC.ARPA Subject: Re: space elevators In-reply-to: SSteinberg's message of 18 October 1983 23:22 edt To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC.ARPA cc: Lynn.es@PARC-MAXC.ARPA The chief advantage of the space elevator, or most rocket alternatives, is that you don't try to take your fuel with you. Almost all the fuel in a launch rocket is used to lift itself, very little to directly raise the payload. Avoid this and you get an incredible reduction in energy use. /Don Lynn ------------------------------ Date: 18 Oct 1983 13:56-PDT From: dietz%usc-cse%USC-ECL@MINET-NAP-EM To: space@mit-mc Subject: Secrecy at NASA; Things to come Via: Usc-Cse; 20 Oct 83 01:00:29 An interesting thought about that IRAS business springs to mind. Maybe NASA is being secretive because IRAS has detected some asteroids in very lucrative orbits. Theoretically there could be asteroids transportable to earth with a delta-v of 150 meters per second or less. IRAS should be an excellent asteroid detector, yet I haven't heard any such results. Are they being hushed up? Maybe we'll have a manned asteroid mission in the next few years. (Returning with several tons of platinum, perhaps? I can hear South Africa and the USSR screaming already...) On a more mundane level, NASA may use IRAS's discoveries to push for a space platform for storing liquid helium, or for a manned space station and associated IR telescope. Some sort of semi-permanent replacement is clearly needed. Can IRAS could detect mars-like planets around nearby stars? The atmosphere of Mars is known to act like a large CO2 laser: light from the sun pumps the CO2 molecules to higher energy states, causing the atmosphere to emit much energy in a few narrow IR bands. I wonder what the space telescope will find? The age of extrasolar planetary science has begun! ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 21-Oct-83 0304 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #17 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts at MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 17 Today's Topics: Idiot Re: Halley's Comet Will Be Brighter This Time space elevators Re: Solar Power Sattelites More on solar power satellites Still more SPS comments Electric airplanes SPS Re: space elevators -- another advantage space elevators ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thursday, 20 October 1983 07:06:55 EDT From: Howard.Gayle@CMU-CS-G To: Space@MIT-MC cc: JoSH@RUTGERS.ARPA Subject: Idiot Message-ID: <1983.10.20.10.52.24.Howard.Gayle@CMU-CS-G> "Amory Lovins...is an idiot..." I regret that this discussion has deteriorated into ad hominem attack. Putting all other arguments aside, consider the things a space colony could do to make money: materials, ethical drugs, communications, astronomy, SETI, remote sensing, tourism, spacecraft construction, etc. Should the case for space colonies be based on one technology, solar power satellites, which is clearly politically and environmentally controversial? Why delay 10 years and enrich a lot of lawyers when we don't have to? Space colonies intended for some purpose on which almost everyone agrees have a much better chance of being built sooner. ------------------------------ Date: 20 October 1983 07:16 EDT From: Robert Elton Maas Subject: Re: Halley's Comet Will Be Brighter This Time To: Lynn.es @ PARC-MAXC cc: "TO:" @ MIT-MC, SPACE-ENTHUSIASTS @ MIT-MC I could quibble with you on one of your points. Halley's comet isn't streaking, it's just drifting, most of the time. Only when it gets near the Sun and is traveling very rapidly could it be referred to as "streaking". The rest of the time it's just running or crawling or sitting [sorry, couldn't resist private TENEX joke]. Thus the AP may be sort of correct in saying the comet streaks through the solar system every so often, although I agree it would have been more correct if it had said it streaks through the INNER solar system every so often. ------------------------------ Date: 20 October 1983 07:35 EDT From: Robert Elton Maas Subject: space elevators To: SSteinberg.SoftArts @ MIT-MULTICS cc: "TO:" @ MIT-MC, SPACE @ MIT-MC Yes the energy actually applied to the rocket payload would be the same with an elevator. There are two major differences: (1) Rockets are very inefficient, most of the fuel is wasted in the exhaust, very little is applied to knetic energy of the rising rocket. (2) Much of the energy actually applied to the body of a rocket is spent lifting fuel and rocket engines rather than payload. Typically the whole rocket at launch weighs an order of magnitude more than the payload, so even with a perfect rocket you'd get only about 10% overall efficiency. The combination of these two inefficiencies means very very little of the energy in the rocket fuel actually gets applied to the payload. With electric elevators you get nearly 100% efficiency from electricity to payload-motion, and the way you make the electricity in the first place is highly efficient too, much more efficient than the burning of rocket fuel is. ------------------------------ Date: 18 Oct 1983 9:57-PDT From: dietz.usc-cse@Rand-Relay Return-Path: Subject: Re: Solar Power Sattelites To: space@mit-mc Cc: Howard.Gayle@cmu-cs-g Via: USC-CSE; 20 Oct 83 2:13-PDT Some additional comments on Gayle's objections to SPS: There are much simpler and "softer" ways to provide space and process heat. I heartily disagree. The alternatives to electricity for industrial process heat are fossil fuels (dirty, expensive and limited), geothermal, ground based solar or biomass. Tests of ground based solar for industrial process heat have failed resoundingly (see a recent issue of Mechanical Engineering for a review). Biomass quickly runs into absurdities when you try to scale it up: because plants are such inefficient energy collectors massive amounts of land are needed, yielding high costs and seriously affecting the biosphere. The economics of ethanol are very dubious because of distillation costs (witness the failure of gasohol). Geothermal is too limited, is more expensive and is somewhat polluting. As for space heating, it has become pretty clear that active solar heaters are uneconomical (unless you can get the government to pay for them through tax loopholes or whatever). The best that can be done is to superinsulate homes and offices; the economics of this approach remain to be seen. Replacing the current stock of buildings will take time (the time to replace 50% of the homes in the US is 50 years) and will reduce total consumption of energy only a little. Electric cars are still waiting for breakthrough in batteries. True. There are alternatives, though. A nifty idea is a car fueled by liquid nitrogen (!) heated by a small heat source (say, a hydrogen flame) to 700 degrees then run though a gas turbine. The result is a car that produces very little pollution and gives a very smooth quite ride. Much less hydrogen (or whatever) is required than in conventional engines, so the hydrogen can be economically stored in metal hydrides. Liquid nitrogen costs about ten cents per gallon today, although this price is so low becuase the LN is a byproduct of LOX production for the steel industry. See the latest High Technology (I think) for a short article on this idea. Significant progress has been made in the field of batteries (see the latest American Scientist for an article on one promising type). Hydrogen is a feedstock for synfuel production, so maybe cars will use methanol (say) made with hydrogen produced with SPS power. Aircraft buring hydrogen have been designed (but not built); aircraft could also burn synthetic hydrocarbons. Hydrogen can very easily substitute for natural gas; indeed, hydrogen is better, because it can be burned more cleanly without flame on a platinum catalyst, even at very low hydrogen flow rates, making it ideal for cooking and warming food. Heat pumps would probably be better for home heating, though. The US wouldn't even need much additional electricity if it built a high speed electrified railroad system... Rail transport is already near it upper speed limits because of track alignment problems. The tracks for bullet trains in Japan, for example, are realigned every night(!), imposing high labor costs. I might agree if you are talking about magnetic flight transportation, at least as far as transportation energy costs are concerned. Providing the U. S. with massive amounts of new energy will only delay for a few generations the inevitable population, resources, and environmental disasters. We'll be better off if we deal with those problems now, while there's still a reasonable amount of land, water, and air left. Who said SPS and ecological concern are mutually exclusive? I'd rather have lots of cheap clean energy AND a clean environment. Building powersats will aid maintaining a clean environment. Cheap energy will make it easier and cheaper to recycle needed elements and destroy dangerous chemicals. SPS will eliminate incentives (such as they are) for building nuclear power plants. SPS will reduce acid rain from coal fired plants. SPS has the least thermal pollution of any energy source, since the rectenna is some 90-95% efficient. Cheap energy will reduce manufacturing costs, raising the relative value of other resources, such as a clean environment. Cheap siderophiles from the asteroids will reduce the cost of pollution controls (catalytic converters, for instance, use platinum, paladium and rhodium). Conversely, I don't see how not developing SPS could possibly help prevent overpopulation, resource depletion and environmental disaster. Cheap energy is necessary to significantly raise standards of living in third world countries, decreasing the birth rate. The shear magnitude of the problem is apparent when one considers the amount of energy needed to supply the world of the year 2000 at (say) half of current US per-capita levels. Conventional energy sources (including biomass and ground based solar) would produce enough waste heat to potentially alter the climate. I get the feeling reading your objections that you have started with the idea that SPS is bad because it is large and are trying to justify that belief. Indeed, I get the idea from your last objection that you would object to ANY cheap source of energy, be it solar, fusion, or whatever, no matter how clean it is, because it would seduce people away from a limits-to-growth philosophy. I recommend you read O'Neill's book "2081" for a lucid analysis of the energy problem. ------------------------------ Date: 20 October 1983 07:49 EDT From: Robert Elton Maas Subject: More on solar power satellites To: Howard.Gayle @ CMU-CS-G cc: SPACE @ MIT-MC, dietz%USC-CSE.USC-CSE @ RAND-RELAY I think you are overlooking one simple fact, that we don't plan to supply 100% of our energy from a single SPS. In fact we don't plan to supply 100% of our energy from a whole bunch of SPSs. If we did, then if an SPS failed it's be death for a lot of people. But if we get our energy from many different places no one failure can totally destroy our electric supply nor even disasteriously reduce it. Present we get too much of our energy from MidEast petroleum, so when they cut off the supply we suffer greatly. But even so, we don't die in mass numbers. If 10% of our total energy was from an SPS, and it failed, the disaster wouldn't be as bad as the 1974 oil embargo, i.e. we could easily survive it. If that 10% from SPS replaced some oil imports, it'd mean next time here's an embargo we'd suffer even less than we did in 1974. (I'd also like to see perhaps 20% of our energy from nuclear power plants, again replacing an equal amount of imported oil and/or coal burning; coal fumes kill people and resultant acid rain kills fish in Canada and must be stopped!) So let's add one more source of energy (SPS) to our repertory, so we have more flexibility in response when one of the sources goes away temporarily (MidEast embargo etc.) or permanently (coal is outlawed). If it turns out in practice that SPS is safer than other forms of energy, perhaps we can increase our dependence on SPS to 30% or maybe even 40% (with more than one SPS up there and more than one rectenna down here of course, same as we have more than one nuclear power plant and more than one hydroelectric dam etc.). ------------------------------ Date: 20 Oct 1983 7:32-PDT From: dietz%usc-cse%USC-ECL@MINET-NAP-EM To: space@mit-mc Subject: Still more SPS comments Via: Usc-Cse; 20 Oct 83 08:37:37 REM is not correct when he says the microwave exposure in a town 10 miles from a rectenna will be high. The intensity decays *exponentially* with the square of the distance from the rectenna; at ten miles it should be very low. I just mentioned the figure at the edge of the rectenna (where the intensity is that outside a microwave oven) to give some numbers; of course no one will live there. Josh: Land use is a major reason for going to SPS (vs ground based solar). True, the energy density of the microwave beam is a fraction of sunlight, but: (1) we can convert that energy to electricity with 90-95% efficiency (compared to maybe 20%-25% with photovoltaics), (2) the power beam operates nearly 100% of the time and clouds don't affect it, so the total land area we need to cover is only 1/10 to 1/8 that of ground based solar schemes. Most importantly, (3) the rectenna is light weight and is made mostly of near transparent wire mesh, so crops can be grown under it. One can imagine a combination rectenna- greenhouse for growing fresh vegetables near large cities. Illuminating these green houses could be an excellent use of the energy the rectenna recieves during off peak hours (i.e., at night); also, properly designed greenhouses would be much less polluting than conventional agriculture (no fertilizer or pesticide runoff). Since the rectenna will reflect back to space or dissipate as heat all energy not converted to electricity you *could* live under it, if you wanted to. Probably you'd want to put your high energy industry under or near the rectenna and live elsewhere. If land becomes extremely valuable then rectennas can be floated at sea or (just conceivably) floated in the stratosphere on balloons (allowing much higher beam intensities and smaller rectennas because you don't have to worry about airplanes or birds). -- Paul Dietz ------------------------------ Date: 20 Oct 83 16:56:05 PDT (Thursday) From: Murray.PA@PARC-MAXC.ARPA Subject: Electric airplanes To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC.ARPA cc: Murray.PA@PARC-MAXC.ARPA A solar powered electric airplane has already been demonstrated. The Gossamer Albatross group combined their construction techniques with some leftover NASA Solar panels. $250K for the top of the wing, $6 of Mylar for the bottom. I think they flew it from Paris to England. ------------------------------ Date: 21 October 1983 00:00 EDT From: Keith F. Lynch Subject: SPS To: REM @ MIT-MC cc: SPACE @ MIT-MC, KFL @ MIT-MC The effects of microwave exposure are not cumulative. ...Keith ------------------------------ Date: 20 Oct 83 18:11:28 PDT (Thu) From: Katz.uci-750a@Rand-Relay Return-Path: Subject: Re: space elevators -- another advantage To: Lynn.es@Parc-Maxc Cc: Space-Enthusiasts@Mit-Mc, katz.Uci-750a@Rand-Relay In-Reply-To: Your message about SSteinberg's message Via: UCI; 20 Oct 83 19:01-PDT Although the chief advantage of rocket alternatives is that you don't have to lift the fuel, energy recycling is another advantage. With two way transfers (i.e. missions which eventually return), some lifting methods can act like an energy bank. You make a withdrawal when going put (up in the gravity well), and you return most of what you withdrew when you return. For a space elevator and some other systems, payloads going down help to supply energy for the payloads going up. Admittedly, some energy is almost always lost and one can't always store up enough between launches. Thus, SSteinberg's summary of Newtonian mechanics of launch are correct, but neglect the change in mass due to fuel burning. You reminded him about the mass change, but neglected energy recycling. Is there anything else we left out? ------------------------------ Date: 21 October 1983 02:15 EDT From: Steven A. Swernofsky Subject: space elevators To: SSteinberg.SoftArts @ MIT-MULTICS cc: SASW @ MIT-MC, SPACE @ MIT-MC In-reply-to: Msg of 18 Oct 1983 23:22 edt from SSteinberg.SoftArts at MIT-MULTICS Seth, I think your physical description of "space elevators" leaves out some important facts, but I am not sure if this is reflected in your energy equations. 1. The energy expended is NOT the same as a rocket launch. A rocket launch must expend energy to carry the payload to orbit and more energy to carry the energy-to-carry-the-payload along with the payload. An elevator can carry the latter in the elevator shaft. Thus, the space elevator is more efficient in carrying things to orbit. 2. The energy expended is "stored" in the payload's new position in the Earth's gravity well, and can be recovered. The object can be driven DOWN the elevator, generating energy via flywheels or electromagnetic generators. The structure of the elevator makes this possible, where a rocket-based means of propulsion would not. In fact, a space elevator can be (ideally) driven completely by energy recovered from objects "dropped" from deep space or even lunar orbit. -- Steve ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 22-Oct-83 0304 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #18 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts at MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 18 Today's Topics: Columbia Rollout Wednesday Re: space elevators -- another advantage Shuttle on shortwave Re: SPACE Digest V4 #17 (elevators) "is there anything else we left out? The millisecond pulsar The millisecond pulsar ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 26 Sep 83 14:27:20-PDT (Mon) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: harpo!eagle!allegra!alice!alb @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Columbia Rollout Wednesday The Columbia will be rolled to pad 39A this Wednesday, beginning at 0730 EDT, NASA said today. The launch of STS-9 is still scheduled for 28 October. ------------------------------ Date: 21 October 1983 09:05 EDT From: Robert Elton Maas Subject: Re: space elevators -- another advantage To: Katz.uci-750a @ RAND-RELAY cc: SPACE-ENTHUSIASTS @ MIT-MC, Lynn.es @ PARC-MAXC Indeed, if a space elevator (or rotating skyhook) is designed to recover energy on descending payloads, then it would be self-supporting energywise because when we start processing asteroids for Earth-consumed materials more stuff will be coming to Earth than leaving Earth on the elevator/hook, and with reasonable efficiency the energy recovered from descending materials should exceed the energy needed for ascending people and equipment. ------------------------------ Date: Friday, 21 October 1983 11:24:52 EDT From: Howard.Gayle@CMU-CS-G To: Space@MIT-MC Subject: Shuttle on shortwave Message-ID: <1983.10.21.15.22.17.Howard.Gayle@CMU-CS-G> According to Radio Nederland, during STS-8 NASA relayed shuttle voice on 20.192 MHz lower sideband. The frequency may be used during the next mission. Note that this is not a ham relay. ------------------------------ Date: 21 Oct 1983 1244-EDT From: Nena B. Bauman Subject: Re: SPACE Digest V4 #17 To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC In-Reply-To: Your message of 21-Oct-83 0304-EDT Please take my name of the "Space Digest" mailing list. Thank you. -Nena Bauman (nbb@mit-xx) ------- ------------------------------ Date: 21 Oct 1983 0852-PDT From: Richard M. King Subject: (elevators) "is there anything else we left out? To: space at MIT-MC Yes, there is. In an elevator from the ground to geostationary orbit or above, much of the energy comes from the Earth's rotation. (I think it would take us a long time before use of this energy source had a noticable effect. Long before this we could "ground" some asteroids to compensate.) Dick ------- ------------------------------ Date: 21 Oct 1983 10:20-PDT From: dietz%usc-cse%USC-ECL@SRI-NIC To: space@mit-mc Subject: The millisecond pulsar Via: Usc-Cse; 21 Oct 83 11:36:58 Last year the pulsar PSR 1937+214 was discovered. It has a period of 1.5578 milliseconds (642 rps); its equator moves at 20% of the speed of light! The November Astronomy magazine has a piece on proposed theories for the origin of the pulsar. The object appears to have a very small magnetic field, is not associated with a supernova remnant and is spinning down very slowly. These would be the signs of an old pulsar -- except it spins much too fast! In addition it appears to be alone (not a member of a multiple star system). If it were in a multiple star system its motion could be detected by changes in the arrival times of its pulses. Earlier theories involved a pulsar forming in a binary system; the pulsar would then spin down and lose its magnetic field; then, its companion would expand and matter would accrete onto the pulsar, spinning it up again. The companion would then itself explode, disrupting the system. Unfortunately the numbers don't come out correctly; the companion would have to be so heavy it would supernova too quickly to spin up the pulsar. The new theory is this: the system was originally a binary system with two similar large stars. They supernovaed near the same time, forming two close neutron stars. If the stars are close enough the orbit will decay by the emmision of gravitational radiation. At least one such system is known today; the orbits are indeed decaying at precisely the rate predicted by general relativity. After some time (hundreds of millions of years) the two neutron stars will be orbiting each other almost in contact with a period of about one millisecond. Tidal forces then destroy the smaller star, transfering matter to the larger one. At some point the smaller neutron star is too small to remain a neutron star: it reverts to normal electronic matter and torn apart. Theory predicts the remaining star emits gravity waves until its period is about 1.5 milliseconds, which is nicely confirmed by observation. ------------------------------ Date: 21 Oct 1983 10:20-PDT From: dietz%usc-cse%USC-ECL@SRI-NIC To: space@mit-mc Subject: The millisecond pulsar Via: Usc-Cse; 21 Oct 83 11:36:58 Last year the pulsar PSR 1937+214 was discovered. It has a period of 1.5578 milliseconds (642 rps); its equator moves at 20% of the speed of light! The November Astronomy magazine has a piece on proposed theories for the origin of the pulsar. The object appears to have a very small magnetic field, is not associated with a supernova remnant and is spinning down very slowly. These would be the signs of an old pulsar -- except it spins much too fast! In addition it appears to be alone (not a member of a multiple star system). If it were in a multiple star system its motion could be detected by changes in the arrival times of its pulses. Earlier theories involved a pulsar forming in a binary system; the pulsar would then spin down and lose its magnetic field; then, its companion would expand and matter would accrete onto the pulsar, spinning it up again. The companion would then itself explode, disrupting the system. Unfortunately the numbers don't come out correctly; the companion would have to be so heavy it would supernova too quickly to spin up the pulsar. The new theory is this: the system was originally a binary system with two similar large stars. They supernovaed near the same time, forming two close neutron stars. If the stars are close enough the orbit will decay by the emmision of gravitational radiation. At least one such system is known today; the orbits are indeed decaying at precisely the rate predicted by general relativity. After some time (hundreds of millions of years) the two neutron stars will be orbiting each other almost in contact with a period of about one millisecond. Tidal forces then destroy the smaller star, transfering matter to the larger one. At some point the smaller neutron star is too small to remain a neutron star: it reverts to normal electronic matter and torn apart. Theory predicts the remaining star emits gravity waves until its period is about 1.5 milliseconds, which is nicely confirmed by observation. ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 23-Oct-83 0303 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #19 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts at MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 19 Today's Topics: The millisecond pulsar atmospheric effects of interplanetary migration ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 21 Oct 1983 10:20-PDT From: dietz%usc-cse%USC-ECL@SRI-NIC To: space@mit-mc Subject: The millisecond pulsar Via: Usc-Cse; 21 Oct 83 11:36:58 Last year the pulsar PSR 1937+214 was discovered. It has a period of 1.5578 milliseconds (642 rps); its equator moves at 20% of the speed of light! The November Astronomy magazine has a piece on proposed theories for the origin of the pulsar. The object appears to have a very small magnetic field, is not associated with a supernova remnant and is spinning down very slowly. These would be the signs of an old pulsar -- except it spins much too fast! In addition it appears to be alone (not a member of a multiple star system). If it were in a multiple star system its motion could be detected by changes in the arrival times of its pulses. Earlier theories involved a pulsar forming in a binary system; the pulsar would then spin down and lose its magnetic field; then, its companion would expand and matter would accrete onto the pulsar, spinning it up again. The companion would then itself explode, disrupting the system. Unfortunately the numbers don't come out correctly; the companion would have to be so heavy it would supernova too quickly to spin up the pulsar. The new theory is this: the system was originally a binary system with two similar large stars. They supernovaed near the same time, forming two close neutron stars. If the stars are close enough the orbit will decay by the emmision of gravitational radiation. At least one such system is known today; the orbits are indeed decaying at precisely the rate predicted by general relativity. After some time (hundreds of millions of years) the two neutron stars will be orbiting each other almost in contact with a period of about one millisecond. Tidal forces then destroy the smaller star, transfering matter to the larger one. At some point the smaller neutron star is too small to remain a neutron star: it reverts to normal electronic matter and torn apart. Theory predicts the remaining star emits gravity waves until its period is about 1.5 milliseconds, which is nicely confirmed by observation. ------------------------------ Date: 24 Sep 83 9:00:43-PDT (Sat) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: ihnp4!houxm!hogpc!houti!ariel!vax135!ukc!dgd @ Ucb-Vax Subject: atmospheric effects of interplanetary migration Solid fuel rocket motors certainly deposit micron-sized spheres into the atmosphere. I believe that these spherules, which are mostly alumina have a fairly short life before drifting down if they come from first stage motors (a la Space Shuttle). Such motors used higher up might well create a problem. ...!vax135!ukc!dgd ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 24-Oct-83 0302 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #20 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts at MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 20 Today's Topics: Discovery Delivery May Be Delayed practical use for space, supernova defense Re: NASA anniversary - (nf) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 14 Oct 83 3:33:16-PDT (Fri) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: ihnp4!houxm!mhuxi!eagle!allegra!alice!alb @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Discovery Delivery May Be Delayed If the launch of the Columbia is delayed due to the SRB problem and NASA has to roll it back to the VAB, there won't be enough room for the Discovery (the Challenger is in the other hangar). Therefore, NASA is now considering postponing the delivery of the Discovery to KSC, now set for a week from today (Friday). ------------------------------ Date: 23 October 1983 23:58 EDT From: Robert Elton Maas Subject: practical use for space, supernova defense To: SPACE @ MIT-MC Suppose Betelguese goes supernova in the next century, bathing Earth with intense ultraviolet rays and other nasties. Suppose we have developed space sufficiently that we can put a protective barrier between Betelguese and Earth, blocking all direct radiation so we get only the charged particles that manage to swerve around our barracade. ------------------------------ Date: 19 Oct 83 22:03:17-PDT (Wed) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: pur-ee!uiucdcs!uicsl!wombat @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: NASA anniversary - (nf) #R:utzoo:-324800:uicsl:11100017:000:126 uicsl!wombat Oct 18 20:23:00 1983 Whether the true anniversary is on the 1st or 23rd, I don't know, but NASA is planning to have a big celebration on the 23rd. ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 25-Oct-83 0302 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #21 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts at MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 21 Today's Topics: re: Kaplan article on anti-satellite weapons comments on failed technologies Re: Consequences of STS-9 delay ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 22 Nov 1983 1719-EST From: John Redford To: space%mit-mc at MIT-ML Subject: re: Kaplan article on anti-satellite weapons Message-ID: <"MS10(2124)+GLXLIB1(1136)" 11969738946.13.583.5539 at DEC-MARLBORO> A few issues back someone complained about the article on anti-satellite weapons by Fred Kaplan that came out in the Boston Globe. Far from being a propaganda piece, the article summarizes a lot of people's concerns. The September issue of Spectrum magazine was devoted to the space program, and that the same theme came up over and over again. If we start developing anti-satellite weapons, we will lose what small arms-control verification capabilities we have, we will be plunged into another spiral of the arms race, and we will endanger peaceful uses of outer space. Even on purely military grounds, a treaty forbidding anti-satellite weapons would be a good idea. Our military satellites let us know what the Russians are doing. ASAT weapons would help us prevent the Russians from knowing what we are doing, but American security is so bad that it wouldn't help us much. On the other hand, their ASAT weapons would destroy our main means of reconnaissance. By developing ASATs we would be killing our own reconnaissance efforts and hardly hurting theirs. Not a good tradeoff. The present Russian weapons are unreliable and unable to reach the altitudes of our military satellites. They do not pose much of a threat. By negotiating a treaty now, we can preserve a valuable military resource, and keep civilian space use from being threatened. If the Soviet embassy is putting out this kind of common sense, then perhaps, just this once, we ought to listen. John Redford DEC-Hudson ------------------------------ Date: 24 Oct 1983 1133-EDT From: John Redford To: space%mit-mc at MIT-ML cc: redford at SHORTY Subject: comments on failed technologies Message-ID: <"MS10(2124)+GLXLIB1(1136)" 11962062783.18.583.5234 at DEC-MARLBORO> A little while ago I heard an interesting talk given by Don Pederson, chairman of the EE and CS departments at UC Berkeley. His subject was "VLSI in perspective", but some of his comments on how technologies can fail are relevant to what we've been discussing on SPACE. Integrated circuits have been around now for some twenty years. A terrific variety of technologies have come and gone. Pederson listed some of the ones that he considered to be failures: - Silicon on Sapphire MOS promised much greater speeds than regular MOS by reducing the parasitic capacitances on the chip. - Charge-coupled devices were to be the first means of getting 64K bits of RAM on a chip. - Magnetic bubbles were going to give us non-volatile storage without moving parts. - Josephson junctions switched orders of magnitude faster than regular transistors. However, IBM has recently cancelled their research program in them (or so Pederson claimed). When he looked back on what things failed he noted a number of common patterns: - Oversell on advantages. Josephson junctions were going to blow all other computer technologies out of the water, even though they needed liquid helium cooling, were difficult to fabricate, and difficult to connect to room temperature peripherals. - Wrong market choice. Why use magnetic bubbles when floppies are so cheap? They were going for a replacement market rather than generating a new one. That meant that the existing technology had a vast lead on them. - Soon, major problems emerged with the new technology. It turned out to be difficult to fabricate complex chips with silicon on sapphire MOS, because the sapphire substrate was full of defects, and expensive to boot. Because these technologies were out of the mainstream of research, not much effort could be focussed on solving their particular problems. If you have a thousand people working on improving a mainstream technology, and ten working on this specialized one, then the specialized one is quickly left behind. The final result is slow death. Bubbles still have proponents, as does silicon on sapphire, but they are clearly dropping out of the race. The market is a moving target; if you shoot for a narrow market niche it will be gone by the time your R and D is finished. Let's judge, say, asteroid mining by these criteria. Sure, there are potentially vast mineral resources out there (oversell on advantages). But products like steel are bulky and not particularly valuable (wrong market choice), and already well served by Earthside industries (led by an existing technology). The means for getting the material back is not developed (major problems soon emerge), and only NASA and its Russian equivalent can work on them, whereas everybody in the world is working on regular steel production. A better alternative would be advanced materials processing. Go for the ceramics and alloys that can only be made in space, but can open up entirely new product possibilities. Glass, for instance, is brittle because of surface defects. Fiberglass gets its strength because the fibers can be made very cleanly. In weightlessness, large pieces of glass could be cast without ever touching the crucible walls. Their strength and toughness could approach that of metals, while keeping their high temperature properties and transparency. Let's go for the radical, imagination-stretching applications, and not try to attack the turf of old, entrenched industries. John Redford DEC-Hudson ------------------------------ Date: 22 Oct 83 18:44:23-PDT (Sat) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: hplabs!hao!kpno!astrovax!ks @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: Consequences of STS-9 delay In-Reply-To: Article <2242@alice.UUCP> I thought I would pass on some information that I have recently learned that answered my own question about the possible effects of a STS-9 delay until February on the planned launch of the Challenger in January. The answer: None. According to NASA administrator James Beggs, in an interview with WPRB radio here in Princeton, the Challenger will be unaffected by the Columbia/Spacelab delay even if it is to last until February. One of the reasons that the Challenger mission (at one time called STS-11) will be unaffected is that the planned November STS-10 mission was cancelled due to IUS (Inertial Upper Stage) problems. It's a sad state when one problem causes the cancellation of a mission, giving subsequent missions' problems more time for resolution. ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 26-Oct-83 0302 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #22 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts at MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 22 Today's Topics: Yukon vs. Antartica ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue 25 Oct 83 09:35:20-PDT From: Christopher Schmidt Subject: Yukon vs. Antartica To: Space@MIT-MC.ARPA I'm not so sure that the Yukon was a very good counterargument to the analogy of the Antartic to space colonization. Even with the gold and the Alaska highway (and what I believe is a much more temperate climate), the entire Yukon territory still has a good deal fewer than 20,000 people in it. That wouldn't accomodate the population overflow of the single suburb of San Francisco in which I live (Redwood City), let alone the earth. --Christopher ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 27-Oct-83 0302 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #23 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts at MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 23 Today's Topics: Spacelab article in Science Re: Failed Technologies comments on failed technologies Re: Solar Power Satellites / soft vs. hard ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed 26 Oct 83 13:36:14-EDT From: Art Evans Subject: Spacelab article in Science To: Space@MIT-MC.ARPA The October 28 issue of Science magazine (the publication of AAAS) has on pages 405-407 a report "Spacelab: Science on the Shuttle" which summarizes the present status of Spacelab. As usual for Science, there is a good discussion of the history and politics of the situation. Art Evans/Tartan Labs ------- ------------------------------ Date: 26 Oct 1983 11:43-PDT From: dietz%usc-cse%USC-ECL@SRI-NIC To: space@mit-mc Subject: Re: Failed Technologies Via: Usc-Cse; 26 Oct 83 12:37:34 The message about failed technologies is well taken. We should definitely look for technologies that are impossible on the ground but feasible in orbit. Asteroid mining was given as an example of a technology in direct competition with ground based industry, and therefore not likely to succeed. This is incorrect. No one has suggested that the asteroids are a near-term economical source of iron or other common elements for use on the ground. At the very most rare, high value siderophiles such as platinum could be returned to earth. The real use of asteroidal (or lunar) material is as raw material for building large space structures. In space the cost advantage of terrestrial materials is nullified. Any large industry in space will require mass for factories, power supplies, raw materials, etc. Once this mass becomes sufficiently large the use of extraterrestrial materials will become economical. Extraterrestrial mining is a "secondary" industry that will support primary space industries, such as zero-g material processing, high vacuum processes, solar power collection and so on. ET-mining will be economical (and perhaps necessary) should *any* of these industries become very large. An idea I heard of for space processing: depositing high purity silicon on large plastic sheets. On earth the very high vacuum required could not be maintained for economically reasonable deposition rates; space provides an essentially infinite pumping capacity and much higher vacuum. Perhaps much larger & cheaper photovoltaic cells can be made this way? ------------------------------ Date: 27 October 1983 02:47 EST From: Robert Elton Maas Subject: comments on failed technologies To: VLSI @ DEC-MARLBORO cc: SPACE @ MIT-MC You may be correct. Perhaps at this time we should concentrate on novel applications (x-ray telscopes, true zero-gee science-fiction movies, ...) and existing applications that are much too expensive when done on Earth (pure pharmaceuticals, ...) and leave the more mundane things (bulk platinum from the Moon, energy from the Sun beamed or fuel-delivered to Earth, ...) for later after we've established a foothold in space. ------------------------------ Date: 27 October 1983 03:06 EST From: Robert Elton Maas Subject: Re: Solar Power Satellites / soft vs. hard To: Howard.Gayle @ CMU-CS-G cc: SPACE @ MIT-MC I don't think that receiving electricity from space (or oil from the mideast) is analagous to somebody telling you what temperature you are allowed in your home. It's more analagous to somebody building a thermostat and offering it for installation (rather than you having to build your own) or somebody providing a power grid that you may buy electricity from (rather than you having to run your own generator). Consider the supermarket vs backyard garden. You have the choice what to eat, the supermarket offers a choice that in most cases is better than what you can grow in your locality, still you can grow your own food if you really want. Most of us will prefer the cheap SPS power and the national power grid rather than insisting on our own private windmill or wood-burning stove. Television can perhaps control you, with the program content an commercials brainwashing you to suit the advertiser's desires, with virtually no use for the aired material other than what the advertiser wants. The only choice you have is to watch or not to watch. But electricity is a flexible commodity that you can use for just about whatevr energy-intensive use you want. I don't see how the people who provide you with electricity can control your use other than limiting the gross amount you use. ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 28-Oct-83 0302 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #24 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts at MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 24 Today's Topics: FWC Re: IRAS discoveries kept secret? Rollback to VAB ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu 27 Oct 83 09:24:30-MDT From: Bob Pendleton Subject: FWC To: space@MIT-MC.ARPA As far as I have been able to find out the FWC ( Filament Wound Case ) is a direct replacement for the steel case currently being used in the space shuttle SRBs. The FWC is the same size, has the same mating hardware, takes the same pressure, and is loaded with the same propellant by the same manufacturer as the steel case that it replaces. The differences are that the FWC is much lighter than the steel case and more expensive than the steel case. The claim is that the reduced weight of the FWCs will produce a 30 to 50 percent increase in shuttle payload. In the near future it looks like the Air Force will be the main user of FWCs, but if civilian payloads keep increasing in size then NASA will need FWCs to meet the payload requirements. The last meeting of the Utah chapter of the AIAA had speakers from Hercules and Thiokol talking about the early history of large solid fuel rockets. It seems the basic technology used in the steel case SRBs was developed in the late 50s, early 60s, as part of the Minuteman missile first stage development project. The basic technology for the FWCs was developed in the same time frame as part of the Polaris missile third stage development. Both technologies have been in constant use and undergoing refinement for over 20 years. Both technologies have produced engines that worked perfectly after being stored for ~20 years. Except for the size of the beasts the SRBs are based on late 50s technology. Bob Pendleton ------- ------------------------------ Date: 27 Oct 83 9:55:20 PDT (Thursday) From: Lynn.es@PARC-MAXC.ARPA Subject: Re: IRAS discoveries kept secret? In-reply-to: ??'s message of last week To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC.ARPA cc: Lynn.es@PARC-MAXC.ARPA Someone (whose message I have erased) on this distribution recently surmised that the IRAS satellite people were hiding their asteroid discoveries, at least the ones near enough to mine in the future. In case anyone took this seriously, we now have one data point contradicting this. IAU circular 3878, dated Oct 14, announces the discovery of an asteroid with the temporary designation 1983TB. It was found on observations by IRAS on Oct 11, and confirmed optically by Kowal at Palomar on Oct 12 and 13. At the time of the circular, the observation time was too short and the observations not measured accurately enough to establish an orbit. However, it was a fast moving object (almost 3 degrees per day), which indicates it passes near earth. /Don Lynn ------------------------------ Date: 17 Oct 83 19:20:08-PDT (Mon) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: harpo!eagle!allegra!alice!alb @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Rollback to VAB The Columbia was rolled back to the VAB today, where it will be demated from its external tank and SRB assembly. Then, the shuttle will be moved back to the OPF, where batteries will be recharged and Spacelab checked, and the nozzle of the righthand SRB will be replaced. The whole thing will be reassembled by 6 November, and NASA expects to be able to roll it back out to the pad by the 10th (if the launch is to go off on the 28th; the final decision on the launch date won't come for another week) ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 29-Oct-83 0302 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #25 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts at MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 25 Today's Topics: Launch Date Still Not Set Re: (elevators) "is there anything else we left out? The Right Stuff clock synchronization ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 23 Oct 83 8:08:51-PDT (Sun) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: ihnp4!houxm!mhuxi!eagle!allegra!alice!alb @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Launch Date Still Not Set NASA and the ESA put off until around 1 November the setting of the STS-9 launch date. Engineers are preparing the Columbia to be ready to launch on 28 November, but the two agencies might opt to wait until February, when conditions will be better for Spacelab. If that happens, Spacelab will have to be removed from the Columbia and moved to KSC's Operations and Checkout Building for ''storage and maintenance.'' ------------------------------ Date: 25 Oct 83 7:37:17-PDT (Tue) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: hplabs!hao!seismo!rlgvax!cvl!umcp-cs!rene @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: (elevators) "is there anything else we left out? In-Reply-To: Article <12862@sri-arpa.UUCP> Just out of curiousity, has anyone thought about what such an elevator would look like? It would be AWESOME - imagine, a slender (I don't care how wide it is - it would look slender) column stretching up to infinity. What a breathtaking sight! How wide WOULD it be? What a tourist trap (where is the best location?)! *gasp* - rene -- Arpa: rene.umcp-cs@CSNet-relay Uucp:...{allegra,seismo}!umcp-cs!rene ------------------------------ Date: 28 Oct 1983 19:56:13-PDT From: CCVAX.trest@Nosc To: SPACE@MIT-MC Please Add Me to your List. THANKS!! trest@nosc trest@nosc-tecr Mike Trest 4065 Hancock Street San Diego, Ca 92110 (619)225-1980 ------------------------------ Date: 24 Oct 83 11:17:05-PDT (Mon) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: ihnp4!ihlts!rjnoe @ Ucb-Vax Subject: The Right Stuff "The Right Stuff", while it is a very good movie, was something of a disappointment to me. Perhaps I was expecting too much because of my special fascination with the subject matter but then again I think the movie does not wholeheartedly succeed even for those with lesser expectations. Nothing but the highest praise can be given Phil Kaufman for his direction and (to a much lesser degree) writing. His skill is evident in virtually every scene. These scenes work far better in the movie than they did in Tom Wolfe's book. The failing point of the movie is that it is too much like Wolfe's writing. I perceive this to be the fault of the editors. "The Right Stuff" had FIVE editors, and it looks like they all worked independently, throwing their edited footage together at random. There is no coherence, no fluidity to this movie. Some points are repeated all too often while others (which needed to be made) are all but ignored. I should also mention that Kaufman could have written it better had he not used so many "Wolfe-isms". Wolfe's unique style, while rather interesting to read, just grates on the ears when one hears the words spoken. On the acting level, the movie is excellent considering the difficulties inherent in a story with no main character. They've chosen to emphasize John Glenn, Alan Shepard, and Gordon Cooper at the expense of Wally Schirra and Deke Slayton. If you see the movie, count the number of lines spoken by Schirra (Lance Henriksen) and Slayton (Scott Paulin)--you'll be surprised how small the number really is. But this is all but unavoidable here. The actors themselves are all very good, most notably Ed Harris (as John Glenn), Sam Shepard (as Chuck Yeager), Scott Glenn (as Alan Shepard), and Fred Ward (as Gus Grissom). Dennis Quaid (as Gordon Cooper) and Charles Frank (as Scott Carpenter) should not be forgotten for their more than adequate performances, and as I've said Henriksen and Paulin just weren't given enough opportunity to show how well they can act. Credit for the story has to be given to Wolfe. He has done an incomparable job of presenting a side of the first seven astronauts seldom seen before his book was published. He has also shown how much effect these men had on the direction and philosophy of the manned space program. The movie does a better job than the book does in showing how the similarities and differences in these seven personalities contributed to this end. There is little noteworthy about the special effects. They are more "artsy" than accurate and, while pleasing to look at, detracted from the authenticity of the movie. I do have to give credit for the achievement of depicting aircraft in flight when years have passed since the last of these relics actually flew. There are many inaccuracies and inconsistencies which aviation fans will spot easily. They have also gone too far with the humor in this movie. I disagree with Walter Cronkite that they made LBJ look like a buffoon--while very funny, I think it was probably not too far off target. But they depict government workers and German scientists collectively by caricaturizing them. This time could have been better spent giving the viewer more historical details of the Mercury program. One thing I will say for this movie is that it did not bore me. The three hours (plus!) passed by more quickly than two often do, even faster than another long (but good) movie such as "Gandhi". I do recommend it, particularly to those who read Wolfe's book and didn't hate it. ***% (that's three and one half stars out of four) -- Roger Noe ...ihnp4!ihlts!rjnoe ------------------------------ Date: 25 Oct 83 8:49:18-PDT (Tue) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: ihnp4!houxm!hogpc!houxn!4341gbs @ Ucb-Vax Subject: clock synchronization There is an article in the 24 October issue of PHYSICAL REVIEW LETTERS (Vol. 51, p. 1501) by Cohen, Moses and Rosenblum on "Clock-Transport Synchronization in Noninertial Frames and Gravitational Fields" "It is shown that electromagnetic and clock-transport synchronization procedures are not necessarily equivalent. In noninertial frames and in gravitational fields both procedures can be path dependent. Even for the same path ~100 km above the Earth, the two procedures can give different errors, ~89 usec/day (clock-transport synchronization) and ~60 usec/day (electromagnetic synchronization)." ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 30-Oct-83 0303 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #26 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts at MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 26 Today's Topics: More SRB Problems Re: space elevators -- another advantage More on IRAS IRAS discoveries mohs scale for power systems Re: (elevators) "is there anything else we left out? Re: space-approved adhesives Re: space elevators space approved adhesives ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 25 Oct 83 15:43:38-PDT (Tue) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: harpo!eagle!allegra!alice!alb @ Ucb-Vax Subject: More SRB Problems Engineers have found a minor leak in a joint in one of Columbia's SRB's. The leak, which has occurred before, is not serious, but NASA says it may cause an extra day's delay for STS-9. ------------------------------ Date: 25 Oct 83 16:25:48-PDT (Tue) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: ihnp4!houxm!houxw!rbc @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: space elevators -- another advantage In-Reply-To: Article <12849@sri-arpa.UUCP> You could use the structure of a power evelvator to carry the energy from an SPS to the Earth. In a superconducting cable perhaps. Avoiding all the microwaves from space to ground would cancel a lot of fears for the SPS. ------------------------------ Date: 29 Oct 1983 10:56-PDT From: dietz%usc-cse%USC-ECL@SRI-NIC To: space@mit-mc Cc: Lynn.es@PARC-MAXC Subject: More on IRAS Reply-To: dietz%USC-ECL@SRI-NIC Via: Usc-Cse; 29 Oct 83 11:46:33 I don't know if anyone took the part of my message about secrecy seriously (I didn't). I've heard that some Boston newspaper has discovered that next week NASA will announce that IRAS has discovered a ring around the solar system, at a distance of about 100 AU. There have been some theories of comet origins postulating that most comets are stored in orbits at about this distance (as opposed to the Oort Cloud, which is much farther out). Details, anyone? ------------------------------ Date: 29 Oct 83 1221 PDT From: Ron Goldman Subject: IRAS discoveries To: space@MIT-MC n527 0145 29 Oct 83 BC-PLUTO-10-29 By Robert Cooke (c) 1983 Boston Globe (Independent Press Service) A major surprise in astronomy - discovery of a huge ring surrounding the entire solar system - will be announced soon by scientists controlling a new space satellite. Details of the discovery, not yet disclosed by NASA, are scheduled to be announced Nov. 9 at a news conference at the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, a spokesman for the space agency said. The discovery is considered important because it may help scientists understand how the solar system was formed from a cloud of gas and dust 4.6 billion years ago. Since Galileo aimed the first telescope at the stars and planets in 1610, this huge ring has not been seen. ''As I understand it,'' an astronomer at Harvard University said, ''the team (of astronomers) has found that the sun has a ring'' that circles the solar system beyond the planet Pluto. The ring is estimated to be 9.3 billion miles from the sun. A scientist at a different observatory said that ''there appears to be a ring of substantial thickness'' beyond Pluto. He said it's either ''a ring that is tilted up outside the plane of the ecliptic, or it's stuff that's just spewed all around.'' It's suspected, he added, that the ring material seen by the IRAS satellite (Infra-Red Astronomy Satellite) consists of relatively large particles, bigger than BBs. This was evident because of the type of light, long-wave infrared signals, received by the satellite instruments. ''My guess,'' the scientist said, ''is that it's some sort of debris associated with comets.'' Both scientists asked not to be identified because the space agency has gone to great lengths to maintain secrecy. In addition to the ring, NASA is expected to announce a whole range of other IRAS discoveries Nov. 9. These will include new stars with dark materials in orbit around them, strange clouds of dust in space, and infrared objects in other galaxies. Listed high among IRAS' achievements already is discovery that one of the brightest stars in the sky, Vega, is surrounded by a cloud of debris. This means Vega could have a solar system in the process of formation. This discovery substantially raised the odds that planets are a normal phenomenon near stars. And if there are many planets, then the chances that life exists elsewhere are improved. The IRAS spacecraft, which scans the sky for signals in the infrared, or heat, portion of the spectrum, was launched last January. Its mission should end in about one month, when it runs out of its supply of liquid helium, which is used to cool heat-sensing instruments. IRAS is a joint project by scientists from the United States, Great Britain and the Netherlands. The secrecy surrounding the new IRAS results was imposed by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, and many astronomers are critical because the findings haven't been released yet. ''This is the tightest-kept thing I've seen,'' one scientist complained. ''I can't imagine them being able to keep it so long.'' There has been a report from Japanese observers several weeks ago that a ring had been discovered much closer to the sun, but astronomers interviewed this week said that result isn't widely accepted. Because no information has been released on the new discovery, astronomers are unable to guess what materials the ring might be made of. Those who've had glimpses of the data, however, say the particles are probably rock fragments. If that's true, then the ring is probably not very similar to the bright and beautiful set of rings surrounding the planet Saturn. Instead, the ring may be more like the recently discovered rings circling the planet Uranus. These are so dark they may consist mainly of carbon. According to astronomer Kenneth Brecher of Boston University, the discovery of this ring around the solar system may help discover what it is that perturbs, or slightly alters, the orbit of the planet Neptune. ''It has been claimed that all the perturbations on the planet Neptune are not accounted for by Pluto,'' Brecher said. And, more recent calculations indicate Pluto is less massive than originally believed, which means ''perturbations of the orbit of Neptune have to be explained by something else.'' In other words, Pluto isn't big or dense enough to give Neptune much of a gravitational ''kick'' at closest approach. ''So now, Brecher said, ''they're coming along with something else,'' the ring, ''which maybe can explain that extra perturbation. This is an open problem that may be touched on by that observation.'' END nyt-10-29-83 0444edt *************** ------------------------------ Date: 29 October 1983 21:37 EDT From: Steven A. Swernofsky Subject: mohs scale for power systems To: Howard.Gayle @ CMU-CS-G cc: SASW @ MIT-MC, SPACE @ MIT-MC In-reply-to: Msg of 27 Oct 1983 03:06 EST from Robert Elton Maas This discussion of "hard" and "soft" technology has gone quite far without any description of what is meant by the terms. Please explain what you mean by this distinction, and how it applies to power systems (solar power, fission and fusion power, etc). Thank you. -- Steve ------------------------------ Date: 29 October 1983 22:22 EDT From: Robert Elton Maas Subject: Re: (elevators) "is there anything else we left out? To: hplabs!hao!seismo!rlgvax!cvl!umcp-cs!rene @ UCB-VAX cc: SPACE @ MIT-MC Date: 25 Oct 83 7:37:17-PDT (Tue) From: hplabs!hao!seismo!rlgvax!cvl!umcp-cs!rene @ Ucb-Vax Just out of curiousity, has anyone thought about what such an elevator would look like? (where is the best location?) Paris? (They already started construction on it about a century ago, and indeed it's the most well-known tourist spot in all of France.) Sigh, it'll probably have to be on the equator, so that leaves Paris out. Also you'd like to avoid hurricanes/typhoons, so I guess that leaves out southern India. I guess it's gotta be in Brazil or central Africa. ------------------------------ Date: 26 Oct 83 14:28:54-PDT (Wed) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: decvax!genrad!security!linus!utzoo!henry @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: space-approved adhesives In-Reply-To: Article <3964@ukc.UUCP> If your definition of heavy elements is >Boron, then I think you are not going to find any adhesives of any kind, space-approved or not. You have exactly five elements to work with -- hydrogen, helium, lithium, beryllium, and boron -- and I doubt very much if you can make any useful sort of adhesive out of hydride compounds or active metals. -- Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology {allegra,ihnp4,linus,decvax}!utzoo!henry ------------------------------ Date: 26 Oct 83 10:58:39-PDT (Wed) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: harpo!eagle!hou5h!hou5g!hou5f!hou5e!hou5d!hogpc!houti!ariel!vax135!cornell!uw-beaver!ssc-vax!eder @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: space elevators In-Reply-To: Article <12817@sri-arpa.UUCP> 25 October 1983 A correction to the comment on rocket efficiencies. While it is true that the fact that most of the lift-off weight of current rockets not being payload introduces an inefficiency, current rocket engines are quite efficient at converting chemical e ergy into thrust. Typical figures are 75% for engines at sea level to 97% in vacuum, the difference due to back pressure from the atmosphere at the engine nozzle exit. Dani Eder Boeing Aerospace ------------------------------ Date: 28 Oct 83 6:19:02-PDT (Fri) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: harpo!eagle!hou5h!hou5a!hou5d!hogpc!houti!ariel!vax135!ukc!dgd @ Ucb-Vax Subject: space approved adhesives A correction on my request for space-approved flexible adhesives. Carbon and lighter elements are acceptable. If you know of any please let me know. Thanks, ...!vax135!ukc!dgd David Dixon Electronics Lab. Univ. of Kent, Canterbury, England ct2 7nt +227 66822 ext. 255 ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 01-Nov-83 0303 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #27 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts at MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 27 Today's Topics: Placement of a space elevator. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 31 Oct 83 09:03:16 PST (Mon) From: Katz.uci-750a@Rand-Relay Return-Path: Subject: Placement of a space elevator. To: Robert Elton Maas Cc: hplabs!hao!seismo!rlgvax!cvl!umcp-cs!rene@Ucb-Vax, SPACE@Mit-Mc, katz.Uci-750a@Rand-Relay In-Reply-To: is there anything else we left out? (29 October 1983) Via: UCI; 31 Oct 83 17:03-PST In addition to a location near the equator and out of the way of major storms, there are several other considerations in the location of a space elevator. The elevator must be located away from local residents who would be disrupted by the atmospheric disturbances. The elevator must be accessable to transportation. The elevator system must be protected from both failure and terrorism. The best locations are probably small islands near the equator, just to the east of a large land mass. The land mass will sheild the islands from major storms, and the sea will shield the elevator from people. If it is close enough to the land mass (e.g. within coastal waters) it will be accessible to transportation. As for tourism, the best view of the elevator (in good weather) will probably be from a slight rise about 5 to 10 kilometers away. There are also great security and reliability advantages to construction of several elevators, not just one. ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 02-Nov-83 0302 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #28 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts at MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 28 Today's Topics: Two new planets? Space elevator What a space elevator may look like Realistic space elevators Query Re: Discovery Space Solar Power Re: Vaccumm and people exploding... ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, Sept 28 1983 From: TIM%VPIVM2.BITNET@Berkeley (Ron Jarrell) To: SPACE@MIT-MC.ARPA Reply-To: TIM%VPIVM2.BITNET@BERKELEY Subject: Two new planets? Heard on the news this morning that scientistss are gathering to discuss discoveries made by the space telescope orbited earlier, and that they fairly sure that they have found 1 or possibly 2 new planets in our system. When did all this happen??? -Ron ------------------------------ Date: 1 Nov 1983 07:18:22 PST From: CARROLL@USC-ISIB Subject: Space elevator To: space@MIT-MC The space elevator can't be located in an earthquake-prone area, either. Just how large will it be at the base? Will it taper as it rises, or will it be a straight column? I don't believe I understand all the physics involved in such a project. Will the elevator be "resting" on earth; or, will it be "tied down" to prevent it from being spun off into space? If it will be 22,300 miles tall, will it really be "straight", or will it curve like some galactic spiral arm? The magnitude of such an undertaking would be incredible! Answers or opinions from math-physics types solicited. ------------------------------ Date: 1 Nov 1983 1326-PST Subject: What a space elevator may look like From: Alan R. Katz To: space@MIT-MC cc: katz@USC-ISIF I have in fact seen something which may compare to what a space elevator would look like, ie a tower extending from the ground to infinity. On the first Space Shuttle launch, since there was very little wind and it was very clear, the tower of smoke from the SRBs extended up as far as you could see!! I have never seen anything like it. It lasted for only a minute or so, then dissapated. At the night launch of STS-8, the winds and clouds were such that this did not happen. I don't think there is anything else comparable, which extends from the ground up to infinity (apparently). Alan ------------------------------ Date: 1 Nov 1983 1634-EST From: A. J. Courtemanche Subject: Realistic space elevators To: space at MIT-MC This talk of space elevators is pretty neat, but does anyone know what sort of technology we would need to implement such a device? Specifically, do we currently have materials that can be used to build a tall (80 miles? 100 miles? 200?) structure that won't destroy itself under it's own weight? Also, what sort of structures will be needed to make sure the elevator doesn't topple over? ------------------------------ Date: 1-Nov-83 22:52 PST From: William Daul - Tymshare Inc. Cupertino CA Subject: Query Re: Discovery To: space@mit-mc Cc: DIA.TYM@OFFICE-2 Message-ID: <[OFFICE-2]TYM-WBD-3H1QN> Does anyone know when they will roll out Discovery thru the streets of Lancaster, CA? Thanks, --Bi<< ------------------------------ Date: 4 Nov 83 0:06:27-EST (Fri) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: hplabs!hao!seismo!rlgvax!cvl!umcp-cs!zben @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Space Solar Power [From the virtual flamethrower of ZBEN] The most cogent argument I have heard against the satellite solar power idea is the resultant increase in heat pollution. Thats right. Those big solar panels out there are tantamount to increasing the absorption of solar power by the earth. The fact that it is organized as electricity and will be used to do useful work is only a local eddy; eventually every watt we pull down from space will (by the 2nd law of thermo) be released as heat upon the earth. In the Larry Niven "Known Space" series the Pierson's Puppeteers solved the problem in a unique way: they moved their planet to another orbit farther from its sun. I think the solar satellites are yet another government give-away to the high-tech aerospace industries. We have plenty of desert right here on earth, with the advantage of breathable air for the repairmen. Even if we set up the collectors in the desert, it will have a second-order effect on local heat flows. It would be equivalent to transporting some amount of death valley's heat right into downtown L.A.... zben ...seismo!umcp-cs!zben zben@umd2.ARPA ------------------------------ Date: 26 Oct 83 12:30:20-PDT (Wed) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: ihnp4!ihuxs!okie @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: Vaccumm and people exploding... In-Reply-To: Article <1623@fortune.UUCP> While we're on the subjects of people exploding in vacuum *and* *2001*... In *2001*, there's a sequence where astronaut Bowman is unable to get back into the ship; HAL won't open the pod bay doors (#*$% AI machines!). Well, there's an airlock nearby, but in his rush to get outdoors, Bowman forgot his helmet (#*$% actors!). So this is the end, right? WRONG! Our Hero knows (he being an astronaut and all) that you can survive a short exposure to vacuum. So he manages to blow his way into the open airlock, get the door closed, and fill it with air before he does a good imitation of a puffer fish. In all, he was in vacuum for about 15 or 20 seconds -- but it seemed much longer (did any of you hold your breaths during that sequence?). It was a good tension-building scene. BThis was no accident; Clarke knew his stuff. In one of his earlier novels (*Earthlight*), he has a good treatment of this same subject. The crew of a crippled spaceship has to be taken onto another ship before its pile blows; but there aren't enough suits to go around. So the rest have to go over lines to the other ship (no hard-docking is possible)... B.K. (can I breathe now?) Cobb BTL Indian Hill Naperville, IL ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 03-Nov-83 0303 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #29 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts at MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 29 Today's Topics: Re: moondust & creationism - (nf) Re: Space Solar Power - ZBEN's "heat pollution" worries Soviet Space Walk Heat? Watt heat? Re: Space Elevator Re: Vacuum and people exploding... Re: Space Solar Power Realistic space elevators argument in favor of Space Solar Power ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 27 Oct 83 2:27:36-PDT (Thu) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: pur-ee!uiucdcs!miller @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: moondust & creationism - (nf) #R:ihuxr:-72300:uiucdcs:12700041:000:2940 uiucdcs!miller Oct 27 00:59:00 1983 I have been asked via mail to provide more information on the lack of lunar dust vs. age of the moon paradox. OK, here goes: First, I sent a letter to Neil Armstrong. Commenting on a videotape I had recently seen of him made a few weeks after the Apollo 11 flight, I wrote "... You made the comment that, shortly before the launch of Apollo 11, some scientists had made the prediction that so much lunar dust should have accumu- lated on the surface that the lunar module (and the astronauts on board) would literally sink into the surface never to be seen again. Is this a correct evaluation of what you said in Vietnam? ..." The reply came back "Your evalua- tion of the statement made in 1969 is correct." The letter then went on to suggest two other places I might look for further information, including the material by Dr. Thomas Gold, already mentioned in the base note. Other material of which I am aware include a comment made by Issac Asimov in 1959 in which he said the lunar dust should have acccumlated to *at least* 50 feet. Also, there was a symposium in 1965 jointly sponsored by NASA and by the Smithsonian Institution. The papers were published in a very long manual called "Meteor Orbits and Dust" NASA-SP-135. I have not had time to completely read the whole thing yet, but one interesting paper in there is by W. G. Elford entitled "Incidence of Meteors on the Earth Derived from Radio Observations". In there, he gives influx rates into the earth's upper atmosphere for various times and locations. It is clear that the rates for the moon and earth should be very similar, given their close proximity on a cosmic scale. So, even though the Soviet Luna and the American Surveyor gave empirical evidence that the amount of dust was minimal, nevertheless, other data was present to cause some concern among some scientists, given the assumed age of the earth/moon system. While we're on the subject of odd data concerning the moon's age, you might want to take a look at NASA-TR-R277 from 1968. It deals with transient lunar phenomena, which should not really occur if the moon is a cold, dead body. For instance, given the radius, material, age, etc. of a body, you can estimate the cooling effect since that body was formed. But Apollo 15's thermal flow experiments gave temperatures outside of the range which could be explained. This data was repeated on Apollo 17 which gave the same results. (They tried to repeat on 16, but one of the astronaut's feet got tangled in a cable, damaging the equipment.) References to this may be found in NASA-MR-12, pp. 5-6 (and I *think* also in NASA-MR-10 and NASA-MR-11). Also see "Planetary Geology", pp. 183-184 by N. M. Short. This is not a complete list, as I have lots of junk on my desk at home I haven't had time to read yet, as well as several references I need to chase down in the library. But, it should get you started. ------------------------------ Date: 2 Nov 83 09:39:57 PST (Wednesday) From: Jef Poskanzer Subject: Re: Space Solar Power - ZBEN's "heat pollution" worries In-reply-to: umcp-cs!zben's message of 02 Nov 83 03:02 PST To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC.ARPA cc: Poskanzer.PA@PARC-MAXC.ARPA If that's "the most cogent argument" you've heard against SPS, then let's build it right now, because that argument is bunk. The Earth is currently receiving sunlight at the rate of 1.1e24 ergs/sec. That is ten million gigaWatts. One million rectennas. As far as I know, no-one is planning to build that many in the near future. Let's look at a more reasonable number, say a thousand ten gigaWatt rectennas. How much would this heat up the planet? To raise the temperature of the world's oceans by one degree C takes 5.71e31 ergs. If you consider the atmosphere alone, it takes about a thousand times less: 5.26e28 ergs. In one year, a thousand rectennas would receive 3.15e23 ergs (plus a bit because they are only 90% efficient). Thus in the long run, the temperature of the oceans would rise by about 0.00000001 degrees per year; in the short run, the atmosphere would heat up by 0.00001 degrees per year. Are you still worried? How about a little more thought and a little less flaming. --- Jef ------------------------------ Date: 02 Nov 83 1103 PST From: Rod Brooks Subject: Soviet Space Walk To: space@MIT-MC a205 1043 01 Nov 83 BC-Soviet-Space,140 Soviet Cosmonauts Work In Space MOSCOW (AP) - Cosmonauts Vladimir Lyakhov and Alexander Alexandrov left their orbiting Salyut 7 station on Tuesday and attached a solar-powered battery to the outside in a ''landmark'' maneuver in Soviet space exploration, Tass said. The official news agency said the two men worked two hours and 50 minutes in widely varying temperatures to assemble, weld and attach an extra solar-powered battery to the outside of the Salyut. ''Nonetheless, the cosmonauts are feeling fine,'' it said, adding that for the first time it had conducted a radio interview with the two men in space, but giving few details of what was said. Tass, apparently seeking to squelch Western reports of hitches in the operation of the Salyut 7, stressed that today's maneuver was planned and practiced in advance before the two cosmonauts went into space June 27. ap-ny-11-01 1340EST *************** ------------------------------ Date: 2 Nov 83 16:22:16 EST From: Ron Subject: Heat? Watt heat? To: space@MIT-MC.ARPA Come on! Generating electricity any other way is going to have the same effect! Current methods do not take heat from somewhere on Earth and convert it to electric power, only to be dissapated elsewhere when used. If we're going to continue to generate and use electric power lets do it in the cleanest way possible: SPS. (ron) ------- ------------------------------ Date: 2 Nov 1983 18:35-PST From: dietz%usc-cse%USC-ECL@SRI-NIC To: space@mit-mc Cc: CARROLL@USC-ISIB, LS.AC@mit-eecs Subject: Re: Space Elevator Reply-To: dietz%USC-ECL@SRI-NIC Via: Usc-Cse; 02 Nov 83 19:37:38 The space elevator will be a pure tension structure (so it won't topple). In a constant gravity field the cable would taper exponentially, thick end at the top. However, since the cable will be rotating and because gravity is inverse square the taper isn't so fast near the top. There was a diagram plus some mathematics in an issue of DESTINIES (a now defunct SF book-a-zine). Tensile strength/weight ratios required are beyond current materials (but graphite is very close). The biggest problem with the elevator is, again, orbital debris. Back of the envelope calculations tell be that the mean time between debris impacts will be on the order of hours. An elevator from L1 or L2 to the moon or in mars-synchronous orbit is feasible with current materials (but you still have to solve the debris problem). ------------------------------ Date: 2 Nov 1983 19:55-PST From: dietz%usc-cse%USC-ECL@SRI-NIC To: space@mit-mc Cc: randvax!decvax!ihnss!ihuxs!okie%Usc-Cse%USC-ECL@SRI-NIC Subject: Re: Vacuum and people exploding... Via: Usc-Cse; 02 Nov 83 20:39:01 I thought we discussed this some time ago, with the conclusion that while a person might survive vacuum exposure for several tens of seconds he'd need immediate medical treatment. Certainly the scene from "Earthlight" is not possible -- the unsuited astronauts would be incapacitated long before they could get to the other spaceship. Clarke considered the limit to be loss of conciousness due to anoxia, which is wrong -- bubbles in the blood get you long before anoxia does. ------------------------------ Date: 2 Nov 1983 18:54-PST From: dietz%usc-cse%USC-ECL@SRI-NIC To: space@mit-mc Cc: zben@umd2 Subject: Re: Space Solar Power Via: Usc-Cse; 02 Nov 83 20:38:44 In reply to ZBEN's "cogent" argument against SPS: [ZBEN] The most cogent argument I have heard against the satellite solar power idea is the resultant increase in heat pollution. Thats right. Those big solar panels out there are tantamount to increasing the absorption of solar power by the earth. I thought I addressed this issue in one of my messages. Space solar power actually has comparatively low thermal pollution, compared to other energy sources. The reason is quite simple: the thermodynamically limited part of the light-to-electricity conversion process is done in orbit. The SPS radiates its waste heat INTO SPACE, not into a cooling tower (or whatever) on earth. The power transmission process (microwaves & power lines) dissipates into the biosphere as heat maybe 10-15% of the energy delivered to the user. In contrast, ground based thermal electrical generators (fossil fuel, fission, fusion, thermal solar, geothermal) waste at least three fifths of the produced energy as heat (150% of the delivered electrical power). Ground based solar is also a thermal polluter. Deserts are fairly reflective (~35% of the energy is reflected), so much of the sunlight hitting them goes right back into space. A power plant, be it a power-tower or a solar cell array, will decrease this figure to about 5%. The result is that ground based solar puts about 110% of the delivered power into useless waste heat (over and above what the desert would have absorbed). Hardly a "second order" effect! The only electricity sources I can think of that produce less thermal pollution than SPS are wind and hydroelectric -- but I wouldn't be suprised to find that if you extracted enough energy from the wind temperature differences between locations on the Earth's surface would increase. In any case wind and hydro can't supply more than a small fraction of the energy we'll need. If you're still worried about thermal effects of SPS, you can make the rectenna reflective (polished sheet aluminum, say). The intensity of the microwave beam is only 1/2 that of sunlight (at the center; at the edges it's much less), so this looks feasible. Beyond that, you can move manufacturing into orbit (assuming delivering the goods to earth doesn't dissipate too much energy in the atmosphere). After that, you can move consumption into orbit -- space colonies! [ZBEN] I think the solar satellites are yet another government give-away to the high-tech aerospace industries. We have plenty of desert right here on earth, with the advantage of breathable air for the repairmen. But ground based solar can't supply more than about 5% of the nation's electricity needs. Beyond that, you need to solve the problem of large scale electrical energy storage -- a very hard problem. And it isn't completely obvious that ground based solar is cheaper than space based. A large concentrator mirror could conceivably be easier to build, aim and maintain in orbit. It could certainly be far less massive than ground based heliostat arrays. Paul Dietz (dietz@usc-ecla) ------------------------------ Date: 3 November 1983 02:19 EST From: Robert Elton Maas Subject: Realistic space elevators To: LS.AC @ MIT-EECS cc: SPACE @ MIT-MC When actually finished, it won't topple under its own weight because it'll be hanging from its orbital point (hanging both up and down from there) rather than supported at the bottom. During construction, however, if it's built bottom-up, it'll have to support its own weight nitially. But more likely it'll be constructed in orbit and then deorbited at one end, so it'll never have to support its own weight by pushing from the bottom, even during construction. Note, it'd be widest at the middle, at the orbital point, and taper narrower both towards the ground and out to space. Alternately the very bottom part could be supported from the bottom, so it'd taper like the Eiffel Tower at the bottom, then reverse-taper up to the orbital point and back down above it as in the first paragraph. But the very bottom part would be infitesimal (a half mile?) compared to the rest (20,000 miles or more). Although there are some designs for having a tower supported from below, there's a problem in putting so much weight on a single point on Earth. I rather doubt the ground would hold. It would be embarassing to build such a tower only to have the whole island it's located on be sunk into the Earth by all that weight. ------------------------------ Date: 3 November 1983 02:25 EST From: Robert Elton Maas Subject: argument in favor of Space Solar Power To: hplabs!hao!seismo!rlgvax!cvl!umcp-cs!zben @ UCB-VAX cc: SPACE @ MIT-MC Filling the deserts with solar collectors will reduce the amount of light&heat that is reflected back into space, thus increasing the total amount of heating. But with space technology for SPS, we can also put up a thin barrier between Earth and space to shield the Earth from some solar radiation and thus cool the Earth if need be. Alternately if the Earth gets too cold we can remove the shield and maybe even put up reflectors to send more sunlight to Earth. Once we get into space we can increase or decrease total Earth heating easily as needed. That's the real reason for space technology if you're worried about ecology on Earth. We can avoid both ice ages and runaway greenhouse effect by actively controlling the amount of solar radiation reaching the Earth. Without space technology, restricted to ground-based methods, it's very hard to control the overall temperature of the Earth and avoid natural temperature disasters or disasterous side-effects of civilization. ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 08-Nov-83 0304 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #30 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts at MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 30 Today's Topics: Space Debris Re: beanstalks Re: Re: space elevators -- another advan - (nf) Re: (elevators) "is there anything else we left out? gravity waves Re: Heat? Watt heat? Re: Better solar sails? - (nf) Re: Better solar sails? - (nf) Shuttle to Launch This Month Re: Shuttle to Launch This Month Shuttle in VAB IRAS discoveries Witholding of IRAS Data ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu 3 Nov 83 10:47:05-PST From: Ken Laws Subject: Space Debris To: SPACE@MIT-MC.ARPA I understand that orbiting debris would be a problem for the space elevator (and for anything else in orbit). I also understand that collisions could spew fragments that would themselves be hazardous. I don't understand, though, why such collisions would be frequent. I would expect the elevator to develop an orbital "shadow" swept free of debris, and that collisions would only occur with objects newly injected into this space. Are the orbital mechanics such that the elevator would continually intercept new debris trajectories? -- Ken Laws ------------------------------ Date: 3 Nov 1983 19:51-EST From: Hank.Walker@CMU-CS-VLSI.ARPA Subject: Re: beanstalks To: space@mit-mc Message-Id: <436755060/dmw@CMU-CS-VLSI> Think of a space elevator as hanging down to the earth from geosynchronous orbit (the other half hangs up to balance the force). Since the elevator is hanging, it only needs to be lightly tethered to the earth, and might withstand earthquakes given a flexible tether. It will be straight. It must be tapered down in both directions from geosynchronous orbit for minimum tension at the root. No known material has the tensile strength to build one. But we can build variations such as the skyhooks suggested by Hans Moravec. These are basically rotating poles in orbit. An end comes down into the atmosphere, you grab on, and it yanks you up, and you let go at the top. You have to balance this with mass going down or some other energy input. An interesting variation on Earth-to-orbit systems appears in the article "The Launch Loop" by Keith Lofstrom in the December Analog magazine. ------------------------------ Date: 9 Nov 83 21:24:46-EST (Wed) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: pur-ee!uiucdcs!uokvax!andree @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: Re: space elevators -- another advan - (nf) The problem then becomes one of balance. You don't want your elevator drifting up in orbit any more than you want it drifting down. The solution of piping energy back to earth isn't bad. Several people have pointed out that in space `Energy is Cheap.' I never thought I'd see disposing of energy as a problem, though; to much like disposing of money. Subject: gravity waves To: space@MIT-MC n054 1329 31 Oct 83 BC-SCIENCE-WATCH (UNDATED) c. 1983 N.Y. Times News Service In 1976 the Soviet Union's Crimean Astrophysical Observatory found that the surface of the sun is heaving up and down every 160 minutes. ''The interpretation of this phenomenon,'' it reported, ''seems to cause much theoretical difficulty.'' More recently, astronomers have been puzzled by the enigmatic nature of an extremely powerful celestial source of gamma rays called Geminga, which also have a 160-minute periodicity. Now, George Isaak of the University of Birmingham in England has proposed that Geminga causes the solar oscillations. Geminga is believed to be the closest neutron star to the solar system. Isaak argues that if, like many other stars, Geminga is in a tight orbit around some companion body, the pair might radiate gravity waves sufficiently powerful to jostle the core of the sun. Einstein's general theory of relativity predicts the existence of gravity waves, but they have never yet been convincingly detected. The core of the sun, with a density of 30 tons per cubic foot, should respond to such waves far more efficiently than the metal cylinders used in earth-based detection efforts. According to the October 20 issue of Nature, Philippe Delache of France's Nice Observatory and his colleagues have examined five months' worth of gamma ray emissions from Geminga, recorded by the satellite COS-B over a seven-year period. They report a 160-minute variation and also note that tiny earth tremors reach a maximum every 160 minutes, as though the earth were also responding to the gravity waves. As noted by Nature, however, there are several difficulties with such proposed links. When two massive bodies are circling one another every 160 minutes, as indicated by the gamma ray variations, gravity waves should be emitted by each object. The pair would therefore radiate one every 80 minutes. A research group at the University of Rome, led by Eduardo Amaldi, has used suspended bars of metal to record oscillations that could be coming from the core of the Milky Way Galaxy, but they are not yet persuaded the cause is gravitational. Evidence for gravity waves from the galactic core was reported a number of years ago by Joseph Weber of the University of Maryland, a pioneer in such observations, but was never generally accepted. ------------------------------ Date: Friday, 4 November 1983 04:07:23 EST From: Dave-Aronson-H@CMU-EE-AMPERE To: space@mit-mc@cmuc Subject: Re: Heat? Watt heat? Message-ID: <1983.11.4.8.45.54.Dave-Aronson-H@CMU-EE-AMPERE> Sounds familiar. A famous TV news figure (who shall remain nameless; you may ask by mail) was quoted in a book I once read (way back in high school) as having claimed that if we kept using nuclear powerplants at the current rate (I think it was in the late 60's, early 70's or so), then all our rivers, lakes, etc. would be boiling within some short time (I think he said a decade or two) and totally evaporated shortly thereafter. Anybody out there think he was right? From the padded cell of Dave Aronson arpa -- dja@cmu-ee-ampere (best) uucp -- ...idis!mi-cec!dja bell -- (412) 578 - 4428 mail -- 1060 Morewood Ave., Box 1917 Pittsburgh, PA 15213 ------------------------------ Date: 1 Nov 83 11:26:06-PST (Tue) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: hplabs!hao!seismo!rlgvax!cvl!umcp-cs!bane @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: Better solar sails? - (nf) I first heard about the perforated solar sail idea at a talk by Robert Forward at Constellation in September. I forget whether he claimed the idea was his or not. The big win here is not that the sail gets lighter, but rather that the sail will now let gas pass through it so it can be used much closer to bodies with atmospheres; the holes are large enough that gas molecules can get through, but smaller than the wavelengths of most sunlight. This will allow neat tricks like geosynchronous satellites away from the plane of the equator (the satellite is a solar sail thrusting along the earth's axis). There were many other strange propulsion ideas thrown out at that talk; Forward had just finished preparing a report for the Air Force on the future of propulsion for space. The one that had me gaping was not the perforated sails, though. Forward mentioned the possibility of the existence of a form of helium created at enormous energy cost which: 1) Would be a solid up to about 300 degrees C. 2) Could turn back into helium gas with an energy release of about 10 times the best possible chemical fuels. Anybody out there know more about this stuff? -- Arpa: bane.umcp-cs@CSNet-relay Uucp:...{allegra,seismo}!umcp-cs!bane ------------------------------ Date: 31 Oct 83 17:52:29-PST (Mon) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: hplabs!hao!seismo!philabs!linus!utzoo!henry @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: Better solar sails? - (nf) Perforating a solar sail with holes smaller than the wavelength of light not only greatly reduces the mass of the sail, it also greatly reduces the air drag on the sail in low Earth orbit. (This would not work in a viscous-flow regime, like Earth-surface pressure, but at orbital altitude the individual air molecules are moving quite independently of each other and it works fine.) I heard about the idea in a talk by Robert Forward, but he may have got it from somebody else. You would definitely make the stuff in space, because it makes little sense to apply the perforating technique unless your sail is as light as possible to start with. The lightest known solid sails are Eric Drexler's metal-foil sails: vacuum-deposited aluminum sheet about 30 nm thick. Sails made with this stuff must be manufactured in space, because the stuff is too thin to be unfolded from a compact package in a practical way. Drexler sails already have quite spiffy performance (by solar-sail standards!), and a 90% reduction in mass would really make them clip along, so if the practical details of perforating can be worked out it would be great. -- Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology {allegra,ihnp4,linus,decvax}!utzoo!henry ------------------------------ Date: 2 Nov 83 16:41:50-PST (Wed) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: harpo!eagle!allegra!alice!alb @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Shuttle to Launch This Month NASA announced today that STS-9 will launch on 29 November. The fall launch will mean the loss of at least 7 of the 32 Spacelab experiments, but NASA promised ESA a free ride on future flights to make up for the loss. ------------------------------ Date: 2 Nov 83 16:42:33-PST (Wed) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: harpo!eagle!allegra!alice!alb @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: Shuttle to Launch This Month Correction: STS-9 is scheduled to launch on 28, not 29, November. My apologies for not proof reading carefully. ------------------------------ Date: 4 Nov 83 11:42:36-PST (Fri) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: harpo!eagle!allegra!alice!alb @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Shuttle in VAB Engineers Wednesday OK'ed the Columbia's two SRB nozzles, and the shuttle was rolled to the VAB yesterday. The Columbia will be moved to the pad Tuesday in preparation for the 28 November launch. ------------------------------ Date: 31 Oct 83 16:45:40-PST (Mon) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: harpo!eagle!mhuxl!cbosgd!djb @ Ucb-Vax Subject: IRAS discoveries The following is taken without permission from today's (10/31/83) USA TODAY (a fine newspaper, I might add). **************************************************************************** TELESCOPE MAY SPOT NEW PLANET By Michael Mecham USA TODAY WASHINGTON - The orbiting telescope IRAS may have sighted at least one new planet, and more planets may come to light next week when astronomers gather here. "There's a very good chance that IRAS will identify a new planet or two" circling the Sun beyond the orbits of Neptune and Pluto, said Nick Gautier, an infra-red astronomer from the University of Arizona. Scientists from England and the Netherlands - the USA's partners in the IRAS venture - will meet here Nov. 9. IRAS, launched by NASA Jan. 25 at a cost of $119.3 million, discovered more about the Large Magellanic Cloud - our nearest galaxy - in just one minute of operation than had ever been obtained by earthbound observatories. In 12 hours of operation, it doubled the number of small galaxies that had been observed near the Milky Way. It also discovered five comets, which astronomers believe are cruical to determining the solar system's formation. **************************************************************************** David Bryant Bell Labs Columbus, OH (614) 860-4516 (cbosg!djb) ------------------------------ Date: 6 Nov 1983 18:34:59 PST From: METH@USC-ISI Subject: Witholding of IRAS Data To: SPACE@MIT-MC cc: METH@USC-ISI The following IRAS data was taken from the American Asrtonomical Society Bulletin Board. Can anybody tell if any data is being withheld? I sure can't! Sheldon Meth _______ November 1, 1983 IRAS CIRCULAR NUMBER 5 SOURCE ID RA FLUX DENSITIES (JANSKYS) IRAS DEC 12 UM 25 UM 60 UM 100 UM 0441+727P05 04H 41M 52S <.3 1.2 4.6 6.8 +72D 46.2' 0449+781P05 04H 49M 44S <.6 .64 6.6 12 +78D 06.6' 0506+536P05 05H 06M 07S .34 1.7 9.4 16 +53D 38.7' 0507+471P05 05H 07M 00S .58 3.0 17 38 +47D 07.0' 0507+528P05 05H 07M 19S 200 290 69 32 +52D 48.9' 0508+796P05 05H 08M 16S <.3 .62 6.0 11 +79D 36.7' 0512+531P05 05H 12M 52S <.4 .67 3.3 6.6 +53D 08.2' 0512+514P05 05H 12M 59S <.3 1.0 7.2 9.0 +51D 28.7' 0513+581P05 05H 13M 28S <.3 .47 5.2 13 +58D 11.1' 0516+432P05 05H 16M 39S .33 .79 6.3 11 +43D 15.3' 0517+428P05 05H 17M 17S .58 .73 4.5 14 +42D 49.8' 0522+416P05 05H 22M 07S 2.6 18 140 190 +41D 39.2' 0531-219P05 05H 31M 13S .42 .77 9.7 32 -21D 58.8' 0533+541P05 05H 33M 45S <.2 .49 5.4 8.3 +54D 08.0' 0536+467P05 05H 36M 09S 170 200 77 34 +46D 44.2' 0538-220P05 05H 38M 06S <.2 <.2 2.1 4.2 -22D 01.7' 0540-240P05 05H 40M 57S <.3 .52 2.8 4.4 -24D 05.2' 0541+586P05 05H 41M 24S .60 .87 16 40 +58D 40.8' 0547-303P05 05H 47M 47S <.2 <.3 3.7 8.3 -30D 18.7' 0552-327P05 05H 52M 01S <.2 <.4 1.8 4.2 -32D 45.1' 0600+477P05 06H 00M 22S 34 31 5.1 <10 +47D 47.9' 0610+668P05 06H 10M 39S <.3 <.4 3.8 8.6 +66D 51.2' 0623+744P05 06H 23M 57S <.2 .88 5.4 8.3 +74D 28.6' 0705+719P05 07H 05M 32S <.2 <.3 2.4 6.1 +71D 55.0' 0706+718P05 07H 06M 45S <.4 .42 4.1 10 +71D 50.0' NOTES: 1. THE SOURCE NAME CONSISTS OF FOUR PARTS: (1) THE LETTERS "IRAS" TO INDICATE THE ORIGIN; (2) THE RIGHT ASCENSION IN HOURS AND MINUTES, SECONDS OMITTED; (3) DECLINATION IN DECIMAL DEGREES, MULTIPLIED BY 10 AND THEN TRUNCATED (I.E. +32D 42.3M => +327); (4) AN APPENDIX STARTING WITH "P" AND FOLLOWED BY THE NUMBER OF THE CIRCULAR; THIS APPENDIX STRESSES THAT THE DATA ARE PRELIMINARY. 2. POSITION IS GIVEN AT EQUINOX 1950.0. 3. THE MEASUREMENTS HAVE BEEN MADE BETWEEN EPOCHS 1983.1 AND 1983.3. ------- ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 09-Nov-83 0303 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #31 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts at MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 31 Today's Topics: Humorous Illustration on cover of Planetary Society Newsletter Practical uses of space. Re: Re: space elevators -- another advan - (nf) Re: Space Solar Power Re: Space Solar Power Re: Space Station Re: Space Solar Power Re: Powersats Re: SPS and global heating Re: The Right Stuff Re: The Right Stuff ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 31 Oct 83 10:46:27-PST (Mon) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: harpo!eagle!allegra!mac @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Humorous Illustration on cover of Planetary Society Newsletter On the back of the September/October "Planetary Report" (newsletter of the Planetary Society) "VOYAGER FOUND - In this whimsical painting, a fusion powered spacecraft (background) with a human and dolphin crew has flown 375 billion kilometers out from earth in pursuit of Voyager 1. The spacesuited dolphins have examined the ancient machine and discovered it's phonograph record is missing - someone has been there before them...." ------------------------------ Date: 31 Oct 83 4:19:44-PST (Mon) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: decvax!decwrl!daemon @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Practical uses of space. From: Ed Featherston HL01-1/P06 225-5241 Begin Forwarded Message: ------------------------------------------- Newsgroup : net.space >From : BACH::PIERSON Organization : Digital Equipment Corp. Subj: Practical uses of space. In reference to some of the discusion of Solar Power Satellites, earthside ecological consideration, and failed technology. "Innovative" technologies are probably the best bet for opening up space industry. However, once we're up there, the more traditional industries become very interesting options. Shipping energy down to earth (say to make steel or alluminum to make car bodies) has the problem of automatically increasing the total energy input of the planet and aggravating a possible global warming trend. Using the heavy industries which may well be developed in space (for general space-side construction) to build car bodies, then shipping the car bodies to earth has several possible advantages. It reduces the energy needs of earth, thus helping the energy problem without pumping more heat into the planet. It reduces the pollution of earthside heavy industry, though a minimum pollution way of getting the cars down would be needed. It also reduces the demand on finite earth resources. dan Mail address : ...decvax!decwrl!rhea!bach!pierson ------------------------------------------- End Forwarded Message ------------------------------ Date: 2 Nov 83 14:13:59-PST (Wed) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: harpo!eagle!karn @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: Re: space elevators -- another advan - (nf) If you think "energy in space is cheap", then I can't help what you may personally be in orbit around (apologies to HGttG). My experience with amateur satellite construction has driven home the EXTREME COST of generating electrical power in space. The solar array contract has dominated the cost of every satellite we've made; the typical cost for a 50 watt array is $50,000!! (Admittedly you could do better by using a three-axis stabilized array, but only by a factor of pi.) Needless to say, this economic imperative pervades the entire electronics design. Perhaps things will improve in the future, but I just wanted to drive home the wide gap between what people are proposing with the SPS and current reality. Phil Karn AMSAT ------------------------------ Date: 1 Nov 83 9:25:38-PST (Tue) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: hplabs!hao!seismo!philabs!cmcl2!floyd!vax135!cornell!uw-beaver!ssc-vax!eder @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: Space Solar Power 1 November 1983 I'd like to make two comments about the 'heat problem'. First, it is true that the energy finally produced by an SPS is eventually converted to waste heat, ALL useful work produces heat as the final byproduct. The advanteges of SPS are that there is less waste heat initially, and it can be compensated for. In a conventional power plant, only about 33% of the prime mover power is converted into electricity. Thus three times as much heat is produced as useful energy. With an SPS, the added flux in microwaves can be compensated for because the recieving antenna or 'rectenna' on the ground is made of metal, rather than ordinary earth. The net result is .4 units of heat for each unit of useful energy with an SPS, versus 3 units of heat / unit useful energy with conventional sources. Second, with ground based solar, either thermal or photovoltaic, you are covering the ground with a very dark surface, thus increasing the absorbtion of solar energy and causing the very problem you speak of. Dani Eder ssc-vax!eder Boeing Aerospace ------------------------------ Date: 31 Oct 83 16:13:40-PST (Mon) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: hplabs!hao!seismo!philabs!linus!utzoo!henry @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: Space Solar Power In-Reply-To: Article <3408@umcp-cs.UUCP> Setting up solar panels in the desert is *much worse* than solar power satellites as far as heat pollution goes. Why? Because solar cells are quite inefficient (15% is very good performance!) and the solar radiation they absorb would otherwise be reflected and re-radiated right back out into space! Solar power satellites put the inefficient part of the process out in space, where it doesn't contribute to Earth's heat input. The net result is that power-satellite power adds rather less heat to Earth than ground-based solar power. In fact, power satellites add less heat to Earth per kilowatt of useful power than almost any other power-generation system. Strange but true. -- Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology {allegra,ihnp4,linus,decvax}!utzoo!henry ------------------------------ Date: 3 Nov 83 14:36:33-PST (Thu) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: menlo70!hao!kpno!astrovax!ks @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: Space Station In-Reply-To: Article <2285@alice.UUCP> <2286@alice.UUCP> efinite about this. Fuqua did not give a date for when this decision would be announced. Fuqua made his statement last week. Karl Stapelfeldt Frank Lemoine WPRB news & Princeton SEDS ------------------------------ Date: 4 Nov 83 6:42:14-PST (Fri) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: hplabs!hao!seismo!rlgvax!cvl!umcp-cs!zben @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: Space Solar Power [..] Most of the refutations of my argument have been of the form: "the Earth is sooooo big (usually followed by some numbers in exponential notation) that it couldn't possibly be a significant effect". Some of the others are worth more thought. What makes you think that, given a few sites that seem to be feasable, every podunk community and every third world nation won't want to install their own version? We seem to be very good as a species at scaling things up to the point the original assumptions become meaningless. There was a general feeling just a few years ago that the Earth was "soooo big" that burning fossil fuel could not possibly shift things. Now the newspapers are full of stories that the greenhouse effect is on the way and that there is nothing that we can do to stop it. I don't want to see that happening anew... How many aerosol spray cans does it take to bring burning vengance from ultraviolet radiation? D*mmit, there *are* no "quick fixes". Just fools searching for them. That includes fusion, satellite solar, oil-from-coal, and just about anything but conservation and appropriate technology. Unfortunately these aren't sexy enough to motivate spoiled techno whiz-kids... Santoyana said that those who didn't understand the mistakes of the past were doomed to repeat them. Don't y'all wish I wuz around when fission power was the latest greatest "quick fix"? (A friend of the Devil is a friend of mine...) Ben Cranston ...seismo!umcp-cs!zben zben@umd2.ARPA ------------------------------ Date: 4 Nov 83 11:33:53-PST (Fri) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: decvax!decwrl!daemon @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: Powersats From: Ed Featherston HL01-1/P06 225-5241 Begin Forwarded Message: ------------------------------------------- Newsgroup : net.space >From : DVINCI::FISHER Organization : Digital Equipment Corp. Subj: Re: powersats The heat pollution problem is not really an argument against powersats. It is an argument against increased energy usage in general. Let us ignore the efficiency of power generation for the moment and consider only heat pollution caused AFTER electricity has entered the distribution network. If total energy usage is the same, it does not matter whether that energy comes from atoms, from solar energy which fell on the earth eons ago and was incorporated into fossil fuels, or from current solar energy which is collected by a powersat, and would not have otherwise touched the earth. Now if you add back in the waste energy caused by the power generation process, (as has been stated before) powersats have a clear heat advantage. I therefore contend that the heat pollution argument is valid against powersats only if you say "Powersats will cause increased power usage compared to terrestrially generated power, and therefore..." Personally, I feel that that we will use what power we think we need no matter what the source, and that powersats are the most environmentally sound method of supplying that power. Burns Mail address : ...decvax!decwrl!rhea!dvinci!fisher ------------------------------------------- End Forwarded Message ------------------------------ Date: 31 Oct 83 15:15:53-PST (Mon) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: decvax!duke!bcw @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: SPS and global heating From: Bruce C. Wright Although it is true that most of the energy beamed to earth from an SPS will be radiated into the environment as heat, it does not at all follow that this will result in more (or even significant) global warming than fossil fuel. First of all, much of the energy in generating stations is expended as heat directly (about 60% as I recall), while in an SPS system the energy is converted much more efficiently (more like 20% waste or less as I recall). This would allow a much larger amount of useful energy for the same amount of heat load if SPS stations were used. Secondly, although it is true that the energy from fossil fuel was absorbed from the sun at one time, it is being released MUCH MUCH faster than it was ever absorbed from solar energy. Thirdly, and in many respects most importantly, the net heat accumu- lation on the earth is going to be the integral sum of the amount of heat received from the sun minus the amount of heat radiated from the earth. The major problem with fossil fuel is NOT the amount of heat it produces directly (though that is a local problem in many places), but the amount of carbon dioxide that it produces, which tends to hold the heat better than most of the other compounds in the atmosphere; therefore fossil fuels reduce the amount of heat which can be re- radiated by the earth IN ADDITION to adding to the heat load directly. In addition, in many places power is generated by wood or other recently living plant matter. This has the effect of decreasing the ability of the biosphere to absorb carbon dioxide, aggravating the heating problem. Objecting to SPS because it would increase the earth's heat load is JUST PLAIN SILLY. There are many other problems with SPS (notably the fact that it is not a tested technology, and depends on several factors which are themselves not tested technology - such as assembly of large objects in space, how to get the material there when we have no experience with doing this on that magnitude from either the earth or the moon, etc), but this is a red herring. Bruce C. Wright @ Duke University ------------------------------ Date: 2 Nov 83 12:51:39-PST (Wed) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: decvax!ittvax!swatt @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: The Right Stuff I was quite disappointed in this movie. I hadn't read the book, but had friends recommend it. The photography was *very* hokey, especially the scenes where they wanted you to believe some plane was going very fast. Worse than the photography however was that several major historical figures were grotesquely mis-played. Eisenhower and Lyndon Johnson worst of all. There were moments of pure slapstick protrayed as if historical fact. I read a review in the New Haven Advocate (local "alternate newspaper" rag) which had, amidst lots of discussion mostly irrelevant to either the book or the movie, one gem of a quote from one of the actresses who played the astronauts' wives: "We were quite pleased with the way it turned out; we were able to reconcile what these women [the wives] felt at that time with our own views as feminists." Heaven forbid that historical accuracy should interfere with making a political statement. :-) That view was about par for most of the movie. I have very little idea how accurate some of the parts of the movie are, but based on what I know to be distortions, I have lots of doubts. Perhaps in this respect Kaufman was only following the book; I'll have to read it and see. - Alan S. Watt ------------------------------ Date: 3 Nov 83 14:21:10-PST (Thu) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: hplabs!hao!seismo!rlgvax!cvl!umcp-cs!rene @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: The Right Stuff In-Reply-To: Article ihlts.249, <1082@ittvax.UUCP> With respect to accuracy: in a newspaper review, one of the people portrayed in the movie (I forget which one) said, "It was well done. Not very accurate, but well done. [For instance] I don't remember all that morality stuff." (That's a quote from memory). I think the scientists were portrayed as being more unsympathetic and more the stereotyped 'german scientist' than they should have been. Naturally, scenes were compressed - it wasn't THAT easy to get a window in the nose cone of the Apollo. - rene -- Arpa: rene.umcp-cs@CSNet-relay Uucp:...{allegra,seismo}!umcp-cs!rene ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 10-Nov-83 0304 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #32 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts at MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 32 Today's Topics: Exercises in Macro-Engineering List of astronomy depts. and observatories on the net Re: List of astronomy depts. and observatories on the net Re: List of astronomy depts. and observatories on the net Creationist citation of Pettersson's meteroite article IRAS discoveries: Betel Shells ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 5 Nov 1983 9:10-PST From: dietz%usc-cse%USC-ECL@SRI-NIC To: space@mit-mc Subject: Exercises in Macro-Engineering Reply-To: dietz%USC-ECL@SRI-NIC Via: Usc-Cse; 05 Nov 83 10:46:21 The latest issue of Analog has an interesting article by Keith Lofstrom on a novel electromagnetic launching device called the "Launch Loop". The launch loop is a narrow iron strip formed into a loop some 4000 km in circumference. The iron moves at some 10 km/sec, and is guided by attractive forces, mainly from permanent magnets. The loop is located at the equator. The central section rises to an altitude of some 120 km and stays there for about 2000 km, then dips back to earth. At the ends the iron strip is guided around a large turning loop (10's of km in diameter) and sent back again. At 10km/sec the loop would fly into space without some extra force to hold it down; this force is provided by masses magnetically suspended below it (attractive magnetic techniques again). Payloads are launched by putting them on top of the loop using repulsive magnetic levitation; magnetic drag from the loop accelerates the payload to orbital velocity and above. The force the loop can exert is limited by eddy current heating of the strip (you don't want to heat it above the curie point). The idea doesn't look totally impossible, although I suspect the attractive magnetic technique would cause eddy currents in the strip. The strip has a mass of 35,000 tons and stores some 1/2 x 3.5E7kg x (1.0E4m/sec)^2 = 1.75E15 joules of energy, about 3 weeks output from a 1Gw electric plant. Lofstrom points out that the loop would make an ideal long distance power transmission system: the power transmitted by a 1 kg/m strip moving at 10 km/sec is some 500 Gw, and can be extracted with high efficiency (99%). Estimated cost of the loop is $1 billion. It could launch one million tons of material a year to geosynchronous orbit. Lofstrom doesn't mention it, but his idea may provide a cheap way to store electrical energy. A 1 kg/m strip formed into a circle with a radius of 100 km and moving at 10 km/sec would store some 8.7 million kilowatt hours of energy. The strip itself would be very cheap: it's only 628 tons of iron. The expensive parts would probably be the magnets for suspending the strip against gravity and for providing centripetal force (the centripetal acceleration is 100 gee's), the control electronics and the linear motor for adding/removing energy from the loop. The loop would have tremendous angular momentum -- would the earth's rotation cause a problem? Maybe counterrotating loops are needed, or the loop can be put entirely at one latitude. For centripetal magnets of fixed strength the energy stored in such a loop is proportional to r^2, while material costs rise linearly in r, so you want the loop to be as large as possible. If this idea is feasible and economical then maybe wind and ground based solar make sense after all. I don't think Lovins would approve, though. Lofstrom and friends are currently building a 3.4 meter, 170 m/sec prototype system. If you want to donate time/money to his project you'll find his address at the end of the Analog article. Date: 6 Nov 1983 7:56-PST From: dietz%usc-cse%USC-ECL@SRI-NIC To: space@mit-mc Subject: Launch Loop: correction Correction: the above ground mass of the launch loop is 35,000 metric tons, not the iron ribbon mass. The mass of the ribbon is 6,000 metric tons. ------------------------------ Date: 4 Nov 83 18:07:44-PST (Fri) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: hplabs!hao!seismo!ut-sally!riddle @ Ucb-Vax Subject: List of astronomy depts. and observatories on the net The following is a list of astronomy departments and observatories on the net. Does anybody know of any others? Name: astrovax Organization: Princeton University, Dept. of Astrophysical Sciences Contact: William L. Sebok Phone: (609) 452-3586 Postal-Address: Princeton Univ. Observatory, 129 Peyton Hall, Princeton, NJ 08544 Electronic-Address: astrovax!wls News: princeton Mail: allegra akgua burl cbosgd cithep decvax fisher ias ihnp4 jplcom kpno princeton rocky2 Name: hao Organization: High Altitude Observatory/NCAR Contact: Peter Gross Phone: (303) 494-5151 x348 Postal-Address: P.O. Box 3000, Boulder, CO 80307 Electronic-Address: seismo!hao!pag News: menlo70 cires hplabs csu-cs seismo kpno Mail: ucsfcgl brl-bmd nbires boulder ntia ames-lm stc70 Name: kpno Organization: Kitt Peak National Observatory Contact: Mike Brown Phone: (602) 327-5511 Postal-Address: P.O. Box 26732, 950 N. Cherry Ave., Tucson, AZ 85726-6732 Electronic-Address: kpno!brown, or kpno!usenet News: arizona hao hsi ut-sally Mail: arizona astrovax charm decvax floyd hao hsi ias ihnp4 lbl-csam miami misvax sdcarl sdcsvax seismo solar unc utastronomy ut-sally vortex Name: utastro Organization: University of Texas, Astronomy/McDonald Observatory Contact: Fritz Benedict Phone: (512) 471-4461 Postal-Address: McDonald Observatory, University of Texas, Austin, TX 78712 Electronic-Address: fritz@utastro.UUCP News: ut-ngp Mail: ut-ngp ut-sally ut-tsp kpno kei-zeus ---- Prentiss Riddle {ihnp4,seismo,ctvax}!ut-sally!riddle riddle@ut-sally.UUCP ------------------------------ Date: 5 Nov 83 9:29:05-PST (Sat) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: hplabs!hao!seismo!ut-sally!riddle @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: List of astronomy depts. and observatories on the net Hmm. I think I goofed when I included hao.UUCP on the list of USENET sites involved in astronomy. True, "hao" stands for "High Altitude Observatory," but I'm not sure that the altitudes of interest to the folks there are quite t h a t high! ---- Prentiss Riddle {ihnp4,seismo,ctvax}!ut-sally!riddle riddle@ut-sally.UUCP ------------------------------ Date: 7 Nov 83 10:14:13-PST (Mon) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: harpo!seismo!ut-sally!riddle @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: List of astronomy depts. and observatories on the net Oops again! HAO, I am politely corrected by a small legion of people, is indeed engaged in astronomical work. As one person put it: > From: seismo!hao!hull > Subject: Re: List of astronomy depts. and observatories on the net > Posted-Date: 6 Nov 83 18:39:41 EST (Sun) > > Hmmmn. Uh, how high is high enough? Er, um, we have several observing > programs, many collaborative in nature, that involve ground based telescopes. > We also have many programs that involve observations from satellites. > It is possible that everyone in the HAO will write to you about this, but > don't worry, you probably will not be flamed. Let me try to make a summary: > > 0. The High Altitude Observatory is a Division of NCAR, The National Center > for Atmospheric Research. NCAR is a Laboratory for UCAR, the > University Corporation for Atmospheric Research. UCAR, a consortium > of 50 member Universities, is a contractor to The National Science > Foundation. > > 1. The Solar Maximum Mission Program > This program, initiated by Dr. Robert M. MacQueen and others at HAO > was a NASA contract to develop a satellite coronagraph for observations > of the Solar Corona on a synoptic basis from 2.5 to 5.0 solar radii. > The objective was to develop the understanding of Coronal Dynamics > and MHD Plasma Physics with respect to Solar processes. The launch > was carried out in 1979 and in appx one year of observations, the > HAO/NASA instrument collected 30000 images of the white light solar > corona. Some of these images display coronal transient phenomena > not previously seen. Many of these images are today found in the > literature as computer-enhanced false-color intensity contours. > > 2. Solar Maximum Repair Mission Program > Too bad, but the SMM spacecraft failed in multiple ways after about > a year of operation. This NASA program, which involves most of the > scientists formerly using SMM data, will continue to work together > with Dr. Frost (NASA Goddard Space Flight Center) to re-activate > the programs when the repair is completed by the crew abord NASA's > shuttle flight STS-13. NASA will repair the satellite's Attitude > Control System (ACS), and HAO will need to replace an electronics > box (MEB). The HAO repair program is headed by Dr. Lewis L. House, > who until recently had been in charge of the data reduction program > using NCAR's CRAY computers. The Main Electronics Box was fabricated > by the Ball Brothers Research Corporation, the subcontractor for the > original sucessful instrument. The box will undergo final testing > next week here at HAO prior to being shipped to the NASA Goddard > Space Flight Center for integration with the STS-13 mission hardware. > > 3. The SMM was initially supported by, and is now totally supplemented by the > Mauna Loa Solar Observatory (mlso) coronagraph station on the island > of Hawaii at 11000 ft. altitude on the North side of the mountain. > (Mauna Loa is regarded as an active volcano. One eruptions did occur > within a few miles of the station, however most are far away down the > southeast flank.) Including HAO scientist Dr. Richard Fisher, the > station is manned by a five member HAO team, and makes synoptic > observations of the Solar Corona from 0.5 to 3.0 Solar Radii in > complement with the SMM. Observations are supplemented by selected > H-Alpha telescope images that the crew collects in patrol mode, or > other modes where activity is evident. > > 4. New programs at HAO will obtain data for the Solar Variability program, > and will include a collaborative program with Dr. G.W. Lockwood of > the Lowell Observatory and Dr. Dimitri Mihalas of HAO to collect > synoptic data on a significant number of stars in the K-Line and in > H-Alpha. There is ample evidence that there are stars with cycles > and chromospheres (See Wilson, et. al.) so its about time we got some > solar/stellar documentation. Dr. Fisher (HAO) is planning to collect > Solar K-Line data at MLSO as well. The K-Line is an excellent magnetic > spectral line generated in the chromospheres of the Sun and many stars. > > 5. A new collaborative program with the Sacramento Peak Observatory will > use instrumentation constructed at HAO and SPO to measure velocities > of solar surface material to an accracy of less than one meter per > second. HAO scientist Dr. Tim Brown is working with SPO scientist > Jack Evans to begin gathering data in the near term. The HAO portion > of the instrument was delivered in July, and integration with the > SPO Perkin Elmer 3220, CAMAC, optical ports and mechanisms is well > along. > > The above discussion concerns mostly instrumentation efforts at HAO. There > is an equal preponderance of theoretical work done here under a couple of > other programs that I will not delineate; it is not possible for me to compose > an article of this length without making an annoying mistake somewhere, so > I had better stop here. > Regards, Howard Hull... A member of the > HAO Instrument Group > > {ucbvax!hplabs | allegra!nbires | decvax!brl-bmd | harpo!seismo | ihnp4!kpno} > !hao!hull Oh, well, into each life some blunders must fall. ---- Prentiss Riddle {ihnp4,seismo,ctvax}!ut-sally!riddle riddle@ut-sally.UUCP ------------------------------ Date: 1 Nov 83 10:28:00-PST (Tue) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: ihnp4!ihuxr!lew @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Creationist citation of Pettersson's meteroite article >From "Scientific Creationism (Public School Edition)" Edited by Henry M. Morris, Ph. D.; Director, Institute for Creation Research: "It is known that there is essentially a constant rate of cosmic dust particles entering the earth's atmosphere from space and then gradually settling to the earth's surface. The best measurements of this influx have been made by Hans Pettersson, who obtained the figure of 14 million tons per year [1]. 1. Hans Pettersson, 'Cosmic Spherules and Meteoritic Dust', Scientific American, Vol. 202 (February 1960),p. 132 " --------------------------------------------- >From the cited reference: "In general the cosmic spherules from the ocean floor indicate a higher rate of meteor-fall in recent times." ...( and after describing his own 14 million ton result) "To be on the safe side, especially in view of the uncertainty as to how long it takes meteoritic dust to descend, I am inclined to find five million tons per year plausible." ------------------------------------------ My purpose here is to show the essential dishonesty of Morris's use of published literature. Morris also makes statements about the nickel content of ocean sediments which completely ignore Pettersson's detailed discussion of exactly that topic. Also note that "Scientific Creationism" had its first printing in 1974, so that in addition to ignoring Pettersson's own uncertainty, Morris is ignoring all the data of the intervening 14 years, including data from earth satellites, the Apollo program, and the Pioneer spacecraft, all of which superseded terrestrial measurements. In his talk, Dr. Brown belittled the significance of Pettersson's work, preferring to cite satellite data. I've been unable to find published references to either the earth satellite data that Dr. Brown mentioned or results of the Apollo 17 meteor counter, which he also mentioned. I have found results from Pioneer, which show a very low flux of micrometeroids. Anyway, none of this mitigates Morris's misrepresentation of Pettersson's article, which I find impossible to ascribe to error or sloppiness. In fact, the five million ton figure is in the title blurb, so that Morris must have dug the 14 million figure out of the text, where it appears just prior to the quote I gave above. Lew Mammel, Jr. ihuxr!lew ------------------------------ Date: 9 Nov 1983 09:28:31 PST From: METH@USC-ISI Subject: IRAS discoveries: Betel Shells To: SPACE@MIT-MC cc: METH@USC-ISI NASA News Release 83-172 IRAS DISCOVERS GIANT DUST SHELLS AROUND THE STAR BETELGEUSE Astronomers studying data from the Infrared Astronomical Satellite at the University of Groningen, the Netherlands, have discovered three giant dust shells that are asymmetrically placed around the star Betelgeuse. IRAS, which was launched Jan. 25, 1983, is a joint project of the United States, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom. It was already known that Betelgeuse, a red supergiant star, loses material. The IRAS data show evidence for the presence of dust shells which extend more than four light years from the star. At this distance, the material must have left the star 100,000 years ago. IRAS observations thus allow astronomers to study the earliest stages in the episode of mass loss. A surprising result is the strong asymmetry in the distribution of dust around Betelgeuse. While it is thought that the process of mass loss is more or less symmetrical around the star, all material observed there by IRAS is seen north of the star. A possible reason for this asymmetry is a strong deformation of the symmetrically ejected material by the ambient interstellar gas through Betelgeuse moves. Betelgeuse is one of the brightest stars in the constellation Orion. It is conspicuously red and belongs to the class of red supergiants. It is one thousand times larger than the Sun; if placed in our solar system, it would extend to the planet Jupiter. -------- END -------- At a news coference today at NASA HQ in Washington, other interesting IRAS discoveries were announced. Of interest is the discovery of three bright bands surrounding the sun between Mars and Jupiter, one along the ecliptic, the other two about 9 degrees above and below the ecliptic. One explanation for the bands is debris from asteroidal collisions all movin in orbits inclined 9 degrees from the ecliptic. The result of such orbits would appear to be three bright bands in the orientation observed by IRAS. ------- ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 11-Nov-83 0304 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #33 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts at MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 33 Today's Topics: Shuttle at Pad Discovery En Route to KSC SRB nozzle problem Re: SRB nozzle problem Re: SRB nozzle problem SRB failure recovery Space debris space debris vs. tower/elevator Re: Realistic space elevators Exercises in Macro-Engineering ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 8 Nov 83 17:34:01-PST (Tue) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: harpo!eagle!allegra!alice!alb @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Shuttle at Pad The Columbis was rolled to the pad today in preparation for its 28 November launch. ------------------------------ Date: 9 Nov 83 14:49:57-PST (Wed) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: harpo!eagle!allegra!alice!alb @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Discovery En Route to KSC The Discovery, which was rolled out of its Rockwell hangar last week and flown to Carswell l AFB in Texas yesterday, took off for KSC this morning, on top of a 747. The ship will be placed in a hangar at the space center and readied for its maiden flight, for its maiden flight, scheduled for next spring. ------------------------------ Date: 8 Nov 83 14:15:45-PST (Tue) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: harpo!eagle!mhuxl!ulysses!smb @ Ucb-Vax Subject: SRB nozzle problem Does anyone know what the final verdict was on what caused the lining erosion? I just saw a news story that said that although the nozzle on Columbia was changed, the protective material was OK, and that the boosters have been "exonerated". The NASA spokesperson is quotes as saying that he didn't understand the complex tests performed, but that NASA is statisfied that there won't be any more problems. ------------------------------ Date: 9 Nov 83 9:22:12-PST (Wed) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: harpo!eagle!mhuxl!mhuxm!rhib @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: SRB nozzle problem According to recent press the lining erosion problem was localized to a single batch of lining material. I presume NASA has taken steps to ensure that subsequent batches are not subsequently found to be defective ------------------------------ Date: 9 Nov 83 8:27:38-PST (Wed) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: ihnp4!ihldt!jhh @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: SRB nozzle problem I don't rember the details exactly, but I believe there was a bubble between the lining and what it lined. This bubble pushed the lining into a position where it was more subject to erosion. ------------------------------ Date: 9 Nov 83 13:59:38-PST (Wed) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: decvax!decwrl!daemon @ Ucb-Vax Subject: SRB failure recovery Forwarded-From: Ed Featherston HL01-1/P06 225-5241 >From : DVINCI::FISHER Organization : Digital Equipment Corp. Thinking about near-failures of an SRB and what might be done has led me to some interesting questions which I wonder if someone out there can answer. Suppose only a single SRB lights up on the pad. Is the shuttle released before SRB thrust is confirmed? If not, can the hold-down bolts and the ET/orbiter structure withstand the thrust of a single SRB for 2+ minutes? Now suppose a single SRB fails after the shuttle is in the air. From all I have read, RTLS abort assumes that the SRB burn can proceed to completion so that SRB sep and ET sep can occur. Can either the SRB or the SRB/ET combination be separated while one or more SRBs are still burning? Are any of the above SRB/ET configurations aerodynamically stable? Would the orbiter get completely fried in the SRB exhaust? Would that be better than umpteen million pounds of asymmetrical thrust? Would the SRB be likely to collide with the orbiter? What happens to the SRB's steerable nozzle (and its associate APU) when it gets no command input from the orbiter? Have any analyses of the above questions been done, or is an SRB failure early in the mission automatically fatal? Thanks in advance for any answers, Burns Wed 9-Nov-1983 13:31 Eastern Daylight Time Mail address : ...decvax!decwrl!rhea!dvinci!fisher ------------------------------ Date: Tue 8 Nov 83 09:38:55-CST From: Jonathan Slocum Subject: Space debris To: space@MIT-MC.ARPA cc: laws@SRI-AI.ARPA One of the bigger problems with space debris (re: a stalk/elevator) is that the thing will be moving at orbital velocity at only one point along its entire length. Even assuming everything else out there were also in an equatorial orbit, the collision velocities could be very high indeed. But, of course, hardly anything else IS in an equatorial orbit, so there is no possibility that the stalk/elevator could "sweep clean" its orbital path, except in the degenerate case: sooner or later, almost EVERYTHING would intersect its path. The few exceptions are easy enough to imagine. ------------------------------ Date: 9 November 1983 01:20 EST From: Robert Elton Maas Subject: space debris vs. tower/elevator To: Laws @ SRI-AI cc: SPACE @ MIT-MC Whereas a normal "point" satellite sweeps out a ringlet, thus can collide only with something whose orbit intersects that ringlet and happens to be in correct phase once, a tower/elevator sweeps out a plane, and thus collides with anything that crosses that plane when it happens to be in the same phase as the tower/elevator. If you think about it a little, you'll see that every other orbit is either in that plane or intersects it, thus every object in orbit whatsoever is a candidate for colliding with the tower/elevator. If it's in the plane, and has exactly the same orbital period, there's no problem, thus geosynchronous satellites and geosynchronous tower/elevator can co-exist. If it's in the plane, and has any different orbit, there's a certainty they'll collide within time 1/(1/T-1/t) where T and t are the orbital periods (times of revolution) of the two objects (tower/elevator and satellite). If it's outside the plane, but with exactly the same period as the tower/elevator, it'll cross the plane twice each orbit at the same point, so if it misses the first two times it'll continue to miss. But if it's outside th plane and with a different period, it'll cross at a new point each time, eventually crossing where the tower/elevator happens to be at that moment and colliding with it. Active space missions can calculate the location of the tower/elevator throughout the mission and carefully avoid getting too close to it, but passive (non-motive) satellites and debris will eventually collide. The only place it'll be safe for a passive object, besides on Earth or in geosynchronous orbit or attached to the tower/elevator, will be far enough out that it's beyond the highest point of the tower/elevator, i.e. far beyond geosynchronous orbit, whereas virtually all existing debris and satellites are in low orbit. Thus it appears we need a space tug to clear out the debris and be on hand for occasionally shoving random passive satellites out of harm's way, before the tower/elevator will be practical. ------------------------------ Date: 13 Nov 83 21:10:07-EST (Sun) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: harpo!floyd!vax135!cornell!uw-beaver!ssc-vax!eder @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: Realistic space elevators x 6 November 1983 Unfortunately, current materials technology does not allow the construction of a reasonable geo-synchronous tower. But you can do some interesting things with current structural materials. The key concept to understand in dealing with tall structures is 'scale height'. In a tower made of a given material, it is the maximum height a constant section column can be built, and can be found by dividing the compressive strength (lb/in**2) by the density (lb/in**3). The result is in inches. In a cable hanging from the sky, it is the maximum length a constant section cable can be before breaking, and is found the same way. Some examples: Steel 240,000 psi , .3 lb/in**3 = 800000 in = 12.6 mi Kevlar 3650 MPa , 1500 kg/m**3 , 9.8 m/s**2 (note, 1 gravity is assumed in english units, must be explicit in metric) = 248 km If you want to build a minimum weight structure taller than one scale height, you taper the column or cable by a factor of e (2.718...) per scale height. One interesting material is graphite reinforced epoxy, which we use here at Boeing in commercial airplanes. The scale height, allowing a factor of saftey for real world design, is 50 km. It is quite possible to build a tower that reaches into low earth orbit. Fortunately, as you get away from the earth's surface, gravity is less, so the scale length increases. Unfortunately, the number of scale lengths to GEO, even for kevlar, is 26. This means the tower has to weigh e**26 = 1.45x10**11 times the 'payload'. If we could grow saphhire fibers, with a theoretical strength of 2.8 million psi, then the tower would only weigh 5000 times the payload, which would make it a feasible transportation system. Dani Eder Boeing Aerospace ------------------------------ Date: 10 November 1983 07:46 EST From: Robert Elton Maas Subject: Exercises in Macro-Engineering To: dietz%USC-ECL @ SRI-NIC cc: SPACE @ MIT-MC A rotating loop oriented vertically and in east-west orientation (north-south axis) at the equator, or horizontally (up-down axis) at the poles, or otherwise perpendicular to the axis of rotation (parallel to the plane of the equator, axis parallel to axis of rotation of Earth) at other latitudes, wouldn't experience gyroscopic problems. Of course at those other latitudes you'd have to support this big slanting ring against falling over, unless perturbations were damped out by the gyroscopic force!! ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 12-Nov-83 0304 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #34 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts at MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 34 Today's Topics: Discovery at KSC Re: Space Solar Power Greenhouse Effect Re: Space Solar Power- -Cheap Stuff. SPS, heat, etc. Re: Re: space elevators -- another advan - (nf) Re: Space Solar Power - (nf) PV Cell efficiency Re: Apollo Program (Semi-Trivia) Questio - (nf) Re: Apollo Program (Semi-Trivia) Questio - (nf) Re: The Right Stuff Re: Apollo 11 landing trivia Neil Armstrong - (nf) Re: Apollo Program (Semi-Trivia) Questio - (nf) Non-equatorial Launch Loops ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 9 Nov 83 23:18:31-PST (Wed) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: harpo!floyd!vax135!ariel!hou5f!hou5g!hou5h!eagle!allegra!alice!alb @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Discovery at KSC The Discovery arrived at KSC this afternoon, and workers there immediately began demating it from its 747. It will then be placed in the Orbiter Processing Facility, next to the Challenger, already there, and checked out for its maiden flight next June. ------------------------------ Date: 7 Nov 83 14:53:24-PST (Mon) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: decvax!dartvax!betsy @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: Space Solar Power I quite agree: there ARE no quick fixes. Furthermore, there are no permanent fixes, even including conservation and 'appropriate technology'. (I suspect my definition of 'appropriate' may be broader than yours, but let that pass.) The best we can hope for from any technology is to move the 'threshold of catastrophe' farther away. Coal mines and woodstoves are having visible,tangible effects on our environment right now, while satellite power may pose threats a hundred years away. Personally, I'll take the hundred-year threat over the this-week threat any day. You may call this 'mortgaging our posterity's futures'; I call it 'trusting to our posterity's intelligence'. Betsy Perry decvax!dartvax!betsy ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 9 Nov 83 10:12 PST From: Swenson.PA@PARC-MAXC.ARPA Subject: Greenhouse Effect To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC.ARPA cc: Swenson.PA@PARC-MAXC.ARPA Concerning warming Earth-greenhoue or other effect: It has been proposed to install partial mirrors (small mirrors intersperced with open space or the equivalent of a partially silvered mirror) to reflect enough energy away from Earth to counter the greenhouse effect. Any comments? Bob Swenson ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 9 Nov 83 15:37 PST From: BollenG.ES@PARC-MAXC.ARPA Subject: Re: Space Solar Power- -Cheap Stuff. To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC.ARPA cc: BollenG.ES@PARC-MAXC.ARPA Regarding Phil Karn's comment about the Extreme Cost of solar power generation: Solar Arrays for sattellites are constrained by both size, and mass, which a PowerSat would not have. PowerSats could use much cheaper technology to produce power, specifically, heat engines. In the orbittal vacuum, a shadowed area would radiate the heat absorbed on the sunward side of a barrier. This barrier could be extremely thin, as long as it remains opaque. This simple heat -cool cycle could very efficiently run a conventional turbine, and from there we go to our microwave transmitter. Such a structure could be built cheaply with lunar material, once we get out into space. No carefully processed Si is required, so it shouldn't cost $1,000 per watt. The technology is simple, so design and construction should be simple. The cost of the array should not be the determining factor in analysing the feasibility of Space Solar Power. ------------------------------ Date: 7 Nov 83 13:33:53-PST (Mon) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: decvax!decwrl!lipman @ Ucb-Vax Subject: SPS, heat, etc. Forwarded-From: Ed Featherston HL01-1/P06 225-5241 >From : BACH::PIERSON Organization : Digital Equipment Corp. The point is not that SPS will cause heat pollution relative to other energy sources, that is obviously absurd. The point is that the laws of thermodynamics make it impractical for us to continue increasing our total earthside energy use. Space is an excellent place to move energy or pollution intensive industries so that our earthside energy (and pollution) budget can be spent on things that *can't* move away from the earthside population. I am well aware that we can't do this immediately. In fact serious proposals would run into intense opposition from the current earth-based industries and labor as well as economic arguments. What I am claiming is that moving these industries is both practical and beneficial *after* other space industries are well established. dan Mail address : ...decvax!decwrl!rhea!bach!pierson ------------------------------ Date: 10 November 1983 06:32 EST From: Robert Elton Maas Subject: Re: Re: space elevators -- another advan - (nf) To: harpo!eagle!karn @ UCB-VAX cc: SPACE @ MIT-MC Date: 2 Nov 83 14:13:59-PST (Wed) From: harpo!eagle!karn @ Ucb-Vax If you think "energy in space is cheap", then I can't help what you may personally be in orbit around (apologies to HGttG). What the crap are you talking about? Please desist in making such vague but nasty innuendos about we who are in favor of developing space. If your remark is supposed to be some drug-culture jargon left over from the 60's, I'll have you know I have never spaced out on drugs and probably never will. If your remark has some other meaning, I have no idea what the crap you are talking about. Since you prefaced this message with this obscene (in my opinion) remark, I'll be a bit blunt in replying to the rest of the message. My experience with amateur satellite construction has driven home the EXTREME COST of generating electrical power in space. The solar array contract has dominated the cost of every satellite we've made; the typical cost for a 50 watt array is $50,000!! That's because you idiots are building those arrays on Earth using mostly manual labor, and then orbiting them. If you automate the whole process, using materials from the Moon and asteroids, using a mass-driver instead of a chemical rocket for orbiting things from the Moon, and you do the whole process in space on a large scale, you'll get a cost reduction of several orders of magnitude. So stop doing it your way and start planning to do it the way we have been advocating, huh? Perhaps things will improve in the future, but I just wanted to drive home the wide gap between what people are proposing with the SPS and current reality. Current reality is that we haven't yet bootstrapped ourselves into space. We need an initial investment to get things started, then enough time for the bootstrapping process to build up, and finally we'll begin to get a wonderful return on our investment. We have the choice of investing just enough money for minimal bootstrapping, which gives minimum risk but a long time before we get payback; or investing a lot more to get things going faster; or of course not investing at all and stagnating on this teensy planet forever. [The rest of you, please forgive my nastiness here, but I really object to somebody accusing me of mental derangement or whatever he was innuendoing about just because I hold a different opinion from him.] ------------------------------ Date: 7 Nov 83 22:45:21-PST (Mon) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: pur-ee!uiucdcs!mcewan @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: Space Solar Power - (nf) D*mmit, there *are* no "quick fixes". Just fools searching for them. That includes fusion, satellite solar, oil-from-coal, and just about anything but conservation and appropriate technology. English translation: *MY* solution is the only solution, and anyone who disagrees is just not as {intelligent,enlightened,omniscient} as I, so don't waste your time trying to think of alternatives, and don't listen to those fools who think there may be another alternative. Considering your grasp of the effects of SPS as demonstrated by your earlier article, I think I'll hear out the fools. Scott McEwan uiucdcs!mcewan ------------------------------ Date: Thursday, 10 November 1983 15:43:37 EST From: Kevin.Dowling@CMU-RI-ROVER To: space@mit-mc Subject: PV Cell efficiency Message-ID: <1983.11.10.20.32.52.Kevin.Dowling@CMU-RI-ROVER> Reported in latest Laser Focus and EOSD: Spire Corp. has developed a process for growing a thin film of Ga-As directly on a silicon substrate. The process converts a conventional single band-gap Si cell with a typical efficiency of 12% to a two band-gap cell with a theoretical efficiency of 30% and a likely conversion rate of 25% in large scale production. In solar cell application, Si is lower in cost but GaAs is more efficient because it captures a larger portion of the solar spectrum. The blurb (in the postdeadline reports section) goes on to mention that the method is a metalorganic chemical vapor process that allow extremely precise deposition of the GaAs. At a production level of 1MW per year, this photovoltaic process is estimated to add $1.30/W to cell costs; at 50MW/year, only $0.22/W. Cell effficiency will thus be more than doubled. ------------------------------ Date: 8 Nov 83 0:27:11-PST (Tue) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: hplabs!hp-pcd!hpfcla!ajs @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: Apollo Program (Semi-Trivia) Questio - (nf) I don't know the names of the Apollo CM/LEM pairs, but you did get me thinking about another piece of Apollo trivia. I have a recording made off the TV of the Apollo 11 landing. It amazes me that about 15 seconds of that historic event have virtually disappeared. Between "contact light" and "we copy you down", there is a stream of technical jargon (from Aldrin?) that you just don't hear anymore. Apparently it was edited out of some key masters that made their way into common use (I'm guessing about that...). Not only that, but, the 15-second fragment is also absent from "transcripts" published in newspapers the next day, and even from the Apollo 11 Mission Report! Before I post it, does anyone have an accurate transcript? Some of the words are a little hard to hear. There's something about "ACLM out of descent" I'm not sure of... Alan Silverstein, hpfcla!ajs ------------------------------ Date: 8 Nov 83 13:26:30-PST (Tue) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: harpo!eagle!karn @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: Apollo Program (Semi-Trivia) Questio - (nf) Here's the transcript from the Apollo 11 landing, also from the book "The History of Manned Space Flight": EAGLE: Faint shadow. 4 forward. 4 forward, drifting to the right a little. 6...down a half. CAPCOM: 30 seconds. EAGLE: Forward. Drifting right...contact light. Okay, engine stop. ACA out of detent. Modes control both auto, descent engine command override off. Engine arm off. 413 is in. CAPCOM: We copy you down, Eagle. ARMSTRONG: Houston, Tranquility Base here. The Eagle has landed. CAPCOM: Roger, Tranquility, we copy you on the ground. You've got a bunch of guys about to turn blue. We're breathing again. Thanks a lot. EAGLE: Thank you. ------------------------------ Date: 5 Nov 83 13:47:13-PST (Sat) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: ihnp4!cbosgd!osu-dbs!julian @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: The Right Stuff "With respect to accuracy:" That was Mercury, not Apollo. Maybe that person was in the wrong place at the right time. Or maybe he wasn't paying attention. Whatever, doesn't mean "all that morality stuff" didn't happen. Remember, this is a movie adaption of the book. Three hours long, and yet they had to leave out a great deal. It's still neat to see that book brought to life. ------------------------------ Date: 8 Nov 83 11:27:37-PST (Tue) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: ihnp4!ihuxr!lew @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: Apollo 11 landing trivia This item of trivia is near and dear to my heart. I have it memorized and I often recite it on appropriate occasions, such as when I turn off the ignition after a long trip. These words are on a floppy National Geographic record which came with a post-Apollo issue of the magazine. The words are hard to understand, but they are faithfully reproduced by Norman Mailer in "Of a Fire on the Moon". Here they are, but I don't guarantee them against transpositions or omissions (Note the very first word he says): ALDRIN: Ok, engine stop. Modes control both auto. ACA out of detente. Auto descent engine command override off. Engine arm off. 413 is in. HOUSTON: We copy you down eagle. ALDRIN: Houston, Tranquility base here; the Eagle has landed. Another item of trivia which I recently learned: shortly after the landing Aldrin, an Episcopalian, celebrated communion with some wine and a wafer which he had brought in his personal kit. Lew Mammel, Jr. ihuxr!lew ------------------------------ Date: 7 Nov 83 22:45:26-PST (Mon) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: pur-ee!uiucdcs!miller @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Neil Armstrong - (nf) I just received mail from someone who had seen my article about astronaut Neil Armstrong confirming the deep dust theories on the lunar surface. He wanted his mailing address. Unfortunately, the person seems to be on ARPANET and I don't know of a way to reply to him through mail. So sorry to the rest of you who see this; I don't know of any other way to respond. Mr. Armstrong's address (as well as that of many other famous people, by the way) may be obtained from the book Who's Who which is available in every library. I would give you the exact address, but my stuff is at home and I am at my office. Besides, it is easy for you to look it up through Who's Who. I do remember he is in Lebanon, Ohio (working as an oil company executive - a long way from walking on the moon, huh?) ------------------------------ Date: 9 Nov 83 17:40:34-PST (Wed) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: harpo!seismo!rlgvax!cvl!umcp-cs!bane @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: Apollo Program (Semi-Trivia) Questio - (nf) I believe this jargon was caused by a landing computer overload, forcing Armstrong to take over full manual control in the last few meters of descent. Arpa: bane.umcp-cs@CSNet-relay Uucp:...{allegra,seismo}!umcp-cs!bane ------------------------------ Date: 9 Nov 83 19:09:25-PST (Wed) To: space@mit-mc From: sri-unix!decvax!duke!giles@ucf-cs.UUCP (Bruce Giles)@CCA Subject: Non-equatorial Launch Loops One major problem with any non-equatorial launch loop will be pseudo-forces created by the earth's rotation. A good example of what I am talking about is the Foucault pendulum. At the north (or south) pole, the "ground trace" of the pendulum bob will rotate by 360 degrees in exactly 23h 56m ... as the earth rotates underneath it. (Note: this is one rotation with respect to the *stars*, not to the *sun*). Meanwhile, here below the deep south (seriously, 50 km due west from KSC, and at the same latitude as Cairo, Egypt) our Foucault pendulum at the University makes one complete revolution every 48 hours. As I recall, the period of rotation at any latitude L is given by 24/sin(L) hours. This is important for any non-equatorial launch loop because it is *impossible* to secure the track against these psuedo-forces. Sure, it should be no problem to anchor the magnets for the *lower* portions of the track, after all the force/unit length of track should be fairly small, but the *upper* portions of the track cannot be anchored. After it has been up for a few days, I suspect the track will begin to look like this from above: ^north (------ | ( ------ | ( ------ +----> east (------------------------------------------) ground portion ------ ) ------ ) ------ space portion If the ends of the space-borne portion of the track are anchored as shown in *Analog*, the curve of the track should be even more inter- esting, but totally impossible to show on a text terminal. Unfortunately, this is not the only pseudo-force involved with the loop. Because of the high speed of the track, its phyical dimensions, and its mass, it will have a *very* large angular momentum. As a result, it will act as a giant gyroscope balanced on the earth's surface. The coriolis effect described above, or any of a number of other ghastly forces will then have very strange effects on the loop. For example, if I did my cross product correctly the coriolis force will cause the figure-eight pattern shown above, and then the properties of a gyroscope will cause the *entire* loop to slide in a east-west direction. (I am not sure which direction). However, in this case the forces exerted on the ground anchors may be into the hundreds or thousands of tonnes of force. Needless to say, trying to simultaneously (1) support that segment of the loop, (2) deflect the loop either up or across, (3) keep the loop from touching the magnets, and (4) stop the entire loop from sliding along its length is a major task. What other forces can be exterted on the loop? (1): If the earth's magnetic field changes around the loop, a nice hefty current will be generated in the loop. (well, it is a conductor). (2): If static charges are carried with the loop (or even "standing waves" of current under correct conditions), the entire loop will act as a giant generator. In both cases, the loop will be coupled to the earth's magnetic field, and thence to the sunspot cycle of the sun, and thence to .... I have not had the time to calculate the exact numbers based on the data given in the December issue of *Analog*, but I am fairly certain that moving the loop away from the equator will greatly complicate the dynamics of the loop, possibily to the point where the loop can no longer be controlled. Bruce Giles --------------------- (UUCP): decvax!ucf-cs!giles (Snail): UCF, Dept of Math, POB 26000, Orlando Fl 32816 ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 13-Nov-83 0303 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #35 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts at MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 35 Today's Topics: IRAS Discoveries TDRS Problems Will Not Affect STS-9 Cosmonauts returning Re: SRB failure spray cans and ozone The Right Stuff ABM WEAPONS 3takes ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 11 Nov 83 9:12:00-PST (Fri) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: ihnp4!ihuxb!alle @ Ucb-Vax Subject: IRAS Discoveries Washington [UPI] - A satellite telescope that discovered what may be a solar system [sic] also has found a previously unknown asteroid among the planets, stars in formation and more comets than any other observatory in history, scientists from three nations said Wednesday. Astronomy textbooks will have to be rewritten because of the new evidence, the experts said. Scientists from the Us, Holland and Britain assembled at NASA's headquarters to report on the latest data from the IRAS. They said that in addition to the asteroid, IRAS has found evidence fo previously unobserved rings around a distant star and three bands of dust circling through Earth's solar system. "So far the results of this effort have been nothing short of spectacular," said NASA chief James Beggs, speaking for the entire panel. "The taxpayers got a look at the universe that's never been seen before," said Nancy Boggess, an astronomer on the US IRAS team. "It gave us a definite perspective on our own planet here. A lot of chapters in astronomy books will be rewritten because of what we found here." US astronomer Fred Gillett said IRAS has detected an asteroid-like body less than 1.2 miles across that passes closer to the sun than any known planet or asteroid in the solar system. Its orbit intersects that of Mercury. Beggs said the satellite is responsible for the discovery of five comets, "more new comets than any other observer in our history." Also discovered were three giant dust shells around Betelgeuse, an older star and one of the brightest in the Orion constellation. The shells will help scientists study the deterioration of stars. IRAS mapped three rings of dust within the solar system, possibly the result of asteroid collisions. The dust lies mostly in the plane in which the planets travel. Gerry Neugebauer, head of the US IRAS team, said information from the satellite also showed that many areas of the universe previously thought to be empty are filled with small clouds of gas and dust believed to be stars in formation. IRAS was launched in January, but because its coolant is running out, it will not be useful after January, 1984, the panel said. The scientists said the next-generation telescope is to be launched in the 1990s. ------------------------------ Date: 11 Nov 83 10:53:27-PST (Fri) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: harpo!eagle!allegra!alice!alb @ Ucb-Vax Subject: TDRS Problems Will Not Affect STS-9 An antenna on the TDRS-1 satellite failed yesterday, and NASA is having trouble activating its backup system. However, the two are a redundant package designed to be used only if a main antenna and its backup fail; that has not yet happened. ------------------------------ Date: 12 Nov 83 1422 PST From: Rod Brooks Subject: Cosmonauts returning To: space@MIT-MC a016 0113 12 Nov 83 Cosmonauts Reportedly Plan Return WASHINGTON (AP) - Two Soviet cosmonauts who have been in space since June are planning a descent to Earth later this month in a spacecraft that may be in danger of losing its fuel, according to a published report. The Washington Post reported today that the Soyuz 9 spacecraft carrying cosmonauts Vladimir Lyakhov and Alexander Alexandrov will have been docked at the Salyut space station for 149 days before it returns to Earth. The newspaper, which quoted unidentified U.S. intelligence sources, said the Soyuz 9's batteries are running down and its volatile hypergolic fuels, which ignite on mixing, have been evaporating to the point that the spacecraft's fuel tanks could be almost empty. Previous Soyuz crews have returned to Earth in spacecraft flown to the Salyut space station by an exchange crew, which stays aboard Salyut for a week or two until another, long-term crew arrives. This way, there is always a crew aboard the Salyut to tend its long-term experiments. The suggestion that Lyakhov and Alexandrov will return to Earth aboard their own Soyuz means that no exchange of crews is contemplated, the Post said. According to the newspaper, this indicates that the launch pad explosion in September that almost killed two cosmonauts who were to take Lyakhov and Alexandrov's places was as serious a setback to the manned Soviet space program as any accident the Soviets have suffered in the past 20 years. The Soviet news agency Tass reported Thursday that the cosmonauts had begun medical preparations for their return and U.S. sources told the Post that the two men had been talking with their flight directors about returning Nov. 24, Nov. 25 or Nov. 26. ap-ny-11-12 0412EST ------------------------------ Date: 10 Nov 83 20:33:38-PST (Thu) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: decvax!genrad!grkermit!masscomp!clyde!burl!rcj @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: SRB failure According to my father, who is chief of safety, west coast, for United Space Boosters Inc., the problem with the SRB was related to one batch of the protective lining material becoming contaminated with silicon. This was, however, an early verdict and I have not talked to him since. The MAD Programmer -- 919-228-3814 (Cornet 291) alias: Curtis Jackson ...![ floyd clyde ihnp4 mhuxv ]!burl!rcj ------------------------------ Date: 7 Nov 83 21:02:24-PST (Mon) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: ihnp4!we13!burl!clyde!floyd!cmcl2!lanl-a!jlg @ Ucb-Vax Subject: spray cans and ozone I forgot to sign my note. Also, if anyone has any recent reports on the ozone issue, I'd be glad to see them. The most recent stuff I've seen was in 1979 and the verdict could have changed since then. Still interest does seem to have evaporated. J. L. Giles jlg@lanl-a ------------------------------ Date: Thu 10 Nov 83 10:18:49-MST From: Bob Pendleton Subject: The Right Stuff Having read the book I had to see the movie. I loved it! It was hilarious! It followed the book quite well but, of course, left out a lot that was in the book. I think of the movie as the comic book version of the book. The heros were heroic, the bad guys (scientists) were villainous scum, and the politicians acted like politicians are supposed to act. Someone, the director maybe or the editor, was a little confused. They show a Mercury-Redstone taking off, then cut to a shot of an Atlas staging, then back to the Mercury-Redstone. Later after showing a Mercury-Atlas taking off they cut to a shot back from the nose that clearly shows a fin, Redstones have fins, Atlases don't. When talking about the rocket assisted F-104 they mention that it has the BIG ENGINE, in the book the BIG ENGINE was always the follow on engine for the X-15. It was well worth the $5, After seeing it YOU WILL BELIEVE THAT A MAN CAN FLY Bob Pendleton P.S. Please don't flame at me about an Atlas being a one stage vehicle and therefore not capable of staging. It is referred to as a 1.5 stage vehicle and dropping the two outboard engines is considered staging. ------------------------------ Date: 06 Nov 83 2043 PST From: Hans Moravec Subject: ABM WEAPONS 3takes To: arms-d@MIT-MC, space@MIT-MC By CHARLES MOHR n005 0617 05 Nov 83 c. 1983 N.Y. Times News Service WASHINGTON - A group of experts has urged President Reagan to order an increase in long-range research on relatively exotic technologies to defend against a nuclear attack. Government officials said the president was expected to follow that advice by the Pentagon-appointed panel of technologists and give priority to still remote technology, rather than undertaking a crash program to deploy actual defensive weapons quickly. Some members of Congress have recommended a deployment program. Many scientists outside government have expressed doubt that any combination of technologies would provide a workable defense against nuclear missiles. But the technologists' panel, called the Defensive Technologies Study Team, is more optimistic about the long-term prospects, officials said. The recent recommendations to the president would substantially increase an already ambitious spending plan that was under consideration before Reagan called for study of a high-technology antimissile system in his so-called ''Star Wars'' speech March 23, the officials added. Although some of the proposed systems might be based in space and might use directed energy such as lasers or particle beams, officials said the study team did not confine itself to space-based methods in its report to the Defense Department and the White House. Perhaps the greatest significance of the emerging White House policy does not concern the technological details of proposed devices. Instead, administration sources say, it may be the president's clear determination that the United States should shift from a policy of nuclear deterrence based solely on offensive weapons and seek to devise a workable defense against nuclear attack after it has begun. Nevertheless, in terms of military research and development, the study team's advice to the president takes a middle course. It rejects pressures from those who believe a defense can be built quickly from available technology. But it also rejects a larger body of strategic and scientific thinking that nuclear defense is not a wise goal and that only moderate research efforts should be continued to avoid a technological surprise by the Soviet Union. Some prominent scientists outside administration policy-making circles said they were very skeptical of the technical feasibility of such systems and even more dubious about the strategic and political wisdom of seeking to build them. One such scientist, Dr. Sidney Drell, a physicist who is deputy director of the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, commented, ''This is a crucial period for strategic doctrine.'' Dr. Hans Bethe of Cornell, a Nobel laureate who was director of theoretical physics for the Manhattan Project in World War II, said, ''My opinion is that it is still totally science fiction.'' Reagan argues that such a system could render a ''system of horrible weapons obsolete,'' a reference to offensive intercontinental missiles. His critics among scientists argue that such a defense would only spur the Soviet Union to increase its stock of nuclear missiles and to undertake complex countermeasures that could render the United States even more vulnerable and make peace more fragile. ''No matter how bad things are now, they can get worse,'' said one critic, Dr. Henry Kendall, a physicist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who is chairman of the Union of Concerned Scientists. On the other hand, the practicability and desirability of antimissile systems have been strongly championed by such figures as Dr. Edward Teller, leader of the team that developed the hydrogen bomb, and Dr. Lowell Wood, a prominent scientist at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. ''I am not telling you that we have complete plans,'' said Teller. ''If we did, we would argue for deployment rather than more research.'' He added that one could not work on military research without a ''positive attitude.'' Some news reports last month indicated that the president had been advised to develop and deploy such a weapon system, but officials now say such reports were incorrect. The scientists on the Defensive Technologies Study Team did not recommend actual development and deployment of the weapons, officials stressed. Instead, the panel urged a strong, prolonged research effort punctuated by periodic demonstrations of technology feasibility. The team was headed by James C. Fletcher, former administrator of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Robert S. Cooper, director of the Defense Department's Advanced Research Projects Agency, said the Fletcher panel had been charged by the administration with giving greater consideration to advanced technologies that were unlikely to be available any time soon and that could lead to workable weapons ''by the late 1990s.'' In all, there were three committees reporting to the president on strategic defense. Besides the Fletcher panel, there was the Future Security Strategy Study, headed by Fred S. Hoffman, a military and research analyst. An interagency group, coordinated by William P. Clark, then the national security adviser, urged that the United States make clear its resolve and ability to overcome the problems of a workable defense against nuclear weapons. Several officials said many of the technologies being considered were so ''immature'' that it was difficult to estimate what production might cost. Several officials said the Fletcher panel's recommendations might lead to an increase of $500 million to $1 billion in research spending for the 1985 fiscal year, which starts next Oct. 1. Expenditures of $18 billion to $27 billion over five years are being discussed. To some policy makers, the increased expenditures now being considered, while large, do not seem enormous. According to Defense Department officials, nearly $2 billion was put in the early budget draft for this type of research for 1985 even before Reagan's March speech. Early planning for the next five-year military budget discussed spending $10 billion to $20 billion on strategic defense. But Dr. Kurt Gottfried, a Cornell physicist who is an officer of the Union of Concerned Scientists, called the proposed expenditures ''a prodigious amount of money.'' He and other critics like Kendall said they doubted that such sums could be efficiently spent in pure research. Another potential controversy involves the probable effectiveness of any defense against nuclear missiles. Reagan's speech put forth a vision of a highly effective screen that might almost eliminate civilian casualties. Many government experts and some members of the Fletcher panel think that, under the best circumstances, many civilians would be killed or injured. Asked about this, Cooper of the Defense Department gave what is increasingly a standard administration response. ''Even if only 50 percent of all incoming missiles were stopped,'' he said, ''the Soviets could then have no confidence in the success of a first strike, and war would be more remote.'' Teller argued that if the Russians were forced to increase expenditures greatly to assure their missiles got through, ''we would have accomplished something.'' Because the technologies and strategic doctrines under discussion are complex, so is the debate about their technical feasibililty and military wisdom. Some examples illustrate this. The Fletcher panel reportedly recommended research leading to a three-tier system that would be able to attack Soviet missiles first as rocket motors were lifting them through the atmosphere. This would be followed by interception in midcourse as the re-entry vehicles coasted above the atmosphere, and then by final defense as the re-entry vehicles plunged back into the atmosphere over the United States. Bethe argued that midcourse interception would be made difficult by the deployment of many decoys for each actual warhead. Also, because the missile boosters are much more vulnerable to damage from lasers or other technology than the heat-resistant and hardened warheads, interception in the boost phase is regarded as especially desirable. Laser ''battle stations'' could be placed in relatively low orbit, and with foreseeable rocket technology this would be the most plausible course, experts say. But the earth's rotation would make it necessary to have more than 100 stations orbiting in order to keep a number of lasers over Soviet territory, according to Bethe and others. The expense would then be very great. Moreover, critics argue, all defensive systems would need to be defended themselves against possible pre-emptive attacks, and this is harder to do in lower orbits. An alternative would be to place directed-energy stations so they would hover over Soviet territory in an orbit that would keep them 22,300 miles directly above points on the earth. To put heavy battle stations in such high orbits, however, would require very powerful rockets, Bethe said. Moreover, he said, releasing X-ray lasers at such altitudes would require the detonation of a nuclear device of ''at least one megaton.'' Radiation from the nuclear explosive would cause material in a bundle of rods orbiting some distance away to emit a powerful beam of X-ray energy. The Fletcher panel report placed great emphasis on X-ray lasers as perhaps the most promising future technology to block hostile missiles. But critics such as Bethe, Drell and Gottfried argue that the enormous distance to the Soviet missiles would complicate the daunting problem of accurate pointing and tracking of laser beams. Because of such problems, a great deal of attention has been given to an alternative concept in which the antimissile systems would be kept on the ground but prepared for immediate launching into space. In one such ''pop-up'' plan, the rockets would be kept ready for instant launching; in another, large mirrors for focusing laser beams would be sent into space, where they would gather and point energy from ground-based lasers. The problems that must be overcome to make pop-up weapons effective are staggering, critics say. In a modern intercontinental missile like the American MX, booster rockets burn for only about three minutes. After early-warning sensor satellites flashed word that a Soviet launching had begun, the pop-up weapons or mirrors would have to be sent aloft almost instantaneously. Moreover, according to Dr. Richard L. Garwin, a noted scientist who is a Defense Department consultant, and others, the rockets would have to move at tremendous speed to lift the defensive devices to altitudes of 1,000 miles or more in less than three minutes so they could attack the Soviet boosters. Gottfried and Drell said the aerodynamic and physical stresses would be difficult for the laser stations to withstand. Gottfried added that the whole system would require supercomputers for control. ''I doubt there could be any human intervention,'' he said. He and other scientists worry about an ''automatic'' initiation of war in space, leading to war on the ground. Further, the skeptical scientists say there is an almost unlimited range of possible Soviet countermeasures. One would be to increase the number of submarines with nuclear missiles, deploy them closer to the United States and then fire them in low trajectories. This would greatly reduce the time available for interception. Wood of the Livermore Laboratory said that the critics were almost all physicists, not systems engineers, military planners or industrialists, and that most of their objections were not in their field of expertise. He said the ''problem of short time-lines of three minutes or less have been considered in great detail for years, and by the Fletcher panel, and satisfactory answers given.'' One example, he indicated, was the possibility of ''forward basing'' in a country such as Britain, permitting the pop-up weapons to attack rising Soviet missiles sooner. The critics contend that many of the individual components of various defensive systems under discussion seem to be technically feasible but that putting them together in a workable system will be very difficult. Teller said the objections of the critics, some of whom are his longtime foes in the policy arena, ''do not show that all that we are doing is useless, but only that we are not completely successful as yet and that further improvements are highly desirable.'' Drell and others contend that Reagan is trying to convince the public that there is a technological solution to the nuclear ''sword of Damocles.'' Only arms control treaties, not technology, can provide a solution, Drell said. Editors note: Art en route to picture clients for the above story. + nyt-11-05-83 0941est *************** ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 14-Nov-83 0303 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #36 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts at MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 36 Today's Topics: bubbles elevators beanstalks and space debris Re: gravity waves Re: gravity waves Re: Exercises in Macro-Engineering Re: Launch Loops Coriolis Forces: gedanken experiment Non-equatorial Launch Loops: OOPS! Getting in to KSC Re: Getting into KSC ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 9 Nov 83 14:13:34-PST (Wed) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: decvax!duke!crm @ Ucb-Vax Subject: bubbles According to Clarke in (I think) View from Serendip, the experiment has been tried with animals, and the current record was held by a dog which survived several MINUTES! -- not to mention that he also mentions a rumor that at least one human lab tech had also been (accidentally) exposed without serious damage. Also, long ago I read in National Geographic about a guy who was testing pressure suits and lost pressure in a glove at 100,000 feet... he got a tremendous hickey but no embolism. Remember that the pressure difference is only 10-33 feet of water! The skin can handle that for some time, so the pressure drop ismaller. Charlie ...!duke!crm ------------------------------ Date: 9 Nov 83 14:09:01-PST (Wed) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: decvax!duke!crm @ Ucb-Vax Subject: elevators The material needed is *REALLLY* strong wire cable, and there is no trouble with the tower falling -- it would actually be under some TENSION, and the problem would be holding it down! Charlie Martin ...!duke!crm ------------------------------ Date: 11 Nov 83 10:29:18 EST From: JoSH Subject: beanstalks and space debris To: space@MIT-MC.ARPA Objects that were in orbits that were exact integral fractions (or multiples) of geosynch, and were not equatorial, would continue to miss the beanstalk if they missed it the first time. Perhaps this, on a smaller scale, explains quantum mechanics :-) ? --JoSH ------------------------------ Date: 9 Nov 83 15:14:10-PST (Wed) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: ihnp4!ihuxm!gjphw @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: gravity waves This brief note is an attempt to clarify a minor error in the NY Times article quoted by R. Goldman. It is a reflection on the intended audience for the original article. > Einstein's general theory of relativity predicts the existence of > gravity waves, but.... The instructor for my general relativity course claimed that Einstein's unadulterated theory does not permit gravity waves. As originally formulated, general relativity is a nonlinear theory which does not permit waves to travel far from the source. A linearized version of general relativity, which is also easier to work with, does allow gravity waves. These comments were made in light of the claims by J. Weber that he had detected gravity waves. Einstein's full theory does not permit the generation of gravity waves, so Weber's observations were considered very interesting. Since then (1978), other experimenters have constructed equipment similar to Webers in an attempt to repeat his findings, but none of the other trials have detected gravity waves. Patrick Wyant AT&T Bell Laboratories (Naperville, IL) *!ihuxm!gjphw ------------------------------ Date: 10 Nov 83 11:48:51-PST (Thu) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: ihnp4!astrovax!mwe @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: gravity waves In-Reply-To: Article <690@ihuxm.UUCP> RELATIVISTIC JET ON! I don't know who your instructor was, but hopefully it was you who misunderstood him, not him making an unforgivable error. But because we seem to be quoting authorities here... My general relativity instructor was Kip Thorne. He said that Einstein's field equations could describe the propogation of gravity waves. In fact, any change in the curvature of space time is caused by such waves. He also said that the waves are non-linear (because gravity waves carry energy => mass; a similar case would be if the photon carried electric charge). This means that the equations can't be easily solved, but it doesn't mean that Einstein's theory doesn't predict the waves. The linearized equations you saw are the weak-field limit, which make the approximation that the energy carried in the waves is negligible. These can be solved, and they represent very closely what happens in Einstein's theory in this limit. CRAWLING BACK INTO MY BLACK HOLE web ewell astrovax!mwe ------------------------------ Date: 9 Nov 83 13:05:20-PST (Wed) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: harpo!seismo!rlgvax!cvl!umcp-cs!judd @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: Exercises in Macro-Engineering having put up such a large loop of iron and got it spinnig et al - what hapens if something large hits it and breaks it or even distorts it enough to contact the ground?? Judd Rogers (judd@umcp-cs) ------------------------------ Date: 11 Nov 83 14:09:10-PST (Fri) To: space@mit-mc From: sri-unix!decvax!duke!giles@ucf-cs.UUCP (Bruce Giles)@CCA Subject: Re: Launch Loops Setting aside for a second the question of flexing in the launch path due to non-inertial forces, would it be possible to have the launched vehicles "select" their own terminal velocities? If a vehicle is coupled to *both* tracks, it should be possible to adjust the amount of acceleration from each track to the right value for NEO, LEO, geostat, cis-lunar, or even interplanetary (if the loop is travelling fast enough). <--- 15 km/sec =============================================================== ------------------- ++++++++++++++++++++++++++ + + + + ++++++++++++++++++++++++++ ------------------- =============================================================== 15 km/sec ---> This would offer a clear advantage, as not all traffic would want to travel to geostat, and speeding up/slowing down the loop would be a major task. The loop could be kept near its operational peak speed, and thus heavy traffic could use it without degrading the system by their heavy demand on the stored energy. The problems I see (at first glance) are: <1>: Will the loop be heated beyond its Curie point? <2>: Will the torque created whenever a vehicle is using both segments degrade the system, or can it be "absorbed" locally. <3>: Alternately, could this torque be used to "aim" the loop, thus permitting orbital inclinations? <4>: Or would it just be easier to only partially use the one loop segment when a lower orbit is desired? Comments? Bruce Giles decvax!ucf-cs!giles (UUCP) UCF, Dept of Math, Orlando Fl 32816 (Snail) ------------------------------ Date: 11 Nov 83 13:36:45-PST (Fri) To: space@mit-mc From: sri-unix!decvax!duke!giles@ucf-cs.UUCP (Bruce Giles)@CCA Subject: Coriolis Forces: gedanken experiment I have been informed that the Coriolis force only acts upon moving objects, and that this signficantly alters my conclusions. I main- tain, however, that the Coriolis force is just one aspect of a more general pseudo-force which is the result of a planetary surface being a non-inertial frame. Hopefully, the following gedanken experiment will at least make my argument sound reasonable. (Translation -- I don't want to have to submit a more rigorous proof: it will run into hundreds of lines.) ====================================================================== Imagine that you are at the south pole, inside of a large, transparent geodesic dome. Directly over the pole is a large concrete basin, with mercury inside of it. Floating upon the mercury is a large concrete raft. Finally, above the basin is hanging a Foucault pendulum. //////////////////////////////////// ------------------------------------ | | | | | | | | | | | | / \ < > pendulum bob \_/ ==============+ ------------------------- +============== //////////////| | concrete raft | |////////////// //////////////| ------------------------- |////////////// //////////////=============================////////////// ///////////////////////////////////////////////////////// At 6:00, you enter the dome and paint a large black line on the con- crete raft in the direction of the sun (if it summer, at A. Centuri in winter...). You then start the pendulum bob such that its ground trace is over the black line. Being a lazy person, you leave the dome until noon. When you come back, the sun has moved through the sky by 90 degrees. When you look at the ground trace of the pendulum bob, you see that it is still pointed at the sun. What about the black line on the concrete raft? I claim that the earth has rotated underneath this raft, and so the black line is still pointed at the sun! When you come back at 18:00, the same thing has occurred. When you come back at midnight, the same thing has occurred. ..... -------------------------------------------------------------------- Because of the severe case of frostbite you recieved in Antartica, you decide to visit Kenya. While there, you take your trusty con- crete raft and Foucault pendulum to the summit of Mount Kenya (??). At day break, you paint a line on your concrete raft toward some landmark, and start the swing of the pendulum bob as described above. At noon, the pendulum bob has not changed the direction it is swinging in. What about the concrete raft? Once again, I claim that the forces acting on the raft are identical to those acting on the pendulum, so it has not rotated either. The next day, you come in and find the same thing..... ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Finally, you go home and in your back yard set up your trusty concrete raft and Foucault pendulum. What happens? ====================================================================== Clearly, these are distinct physical systems. One is moving, dynamic. The other is stationary, static. Yet they have the same response. The best analogy I can think of for this force is in general relativity, using differential geometry. When you try to translate a vector from one point in space to another, an extra term must be added due to the curvature of space. In Euclidean space, this term is identically zero. But on the surface of a sphere, it definity is not. I claim that this is what is known as the Coriolis force, and that for a moving body the vector could be its velocity. For a stationary body it could be any arbitrary reference direction. After all, by Newton's laws of motion if a body is initially at rest it will tend to remain at rest. Hopefully, this has cleared up some questions concerning what I meant by the Coriolis force/ pseudo-forces in my original article. Bruce Giles decvax!ucf-cs!giles (UUCP) UCF, Dept of Math, Orlando Fl 32816 (Snail) ------------------------------ Date: 11 Nov 83 12:54:23-PST (Fri) To: space@mit-mc From: sri-unix!decvax!duke!giles@ucf-cs.UUCP (Bruce Giles)@CCA Subject: Non-equatorial Launch Loops: OOPS! >>>BLUSH<<< I have just finished carefully reading the original article in the December issue of *Analog*, and to my great embarrassment found that I misunderstood the geometry of the loop. I had thought that the side view of a Launch Loop was: --> (motion) ------------------------------ (space) / \ / \ ---------------------------------------- (ground) (motion) <-- The geometry discussed in the article was actually: <===> (motion) =============================== (space) // \\ // \\ (_) (_) (ground) This clearly eliminates the need for concern over the gyroscopic properties of the loop. Similiarly, there should be no problem with coupling to the earth's magnetic field (at least to a first approximation). However, I still maintain that the Coriolis force, or a related pseudo-force, will still distort the space-borne segments of the loop. --------------------------------------------------------------- Sidenote: Bill Jefferys @ utastronomy -- I tried to respond to you but decvax kicked back my mail. (It didn't recog- nize utastro, error code 101 ???). Alas, that means that my responses will get to you via USENET before I can get ahold of the right person here to clear up the problem. (Veterans day ....) --------------------------------------------------------------- Bruce Giles decvax!ucf-cs!giles (UUCP) UCF, Dept of Math, Orlando Fl 32816 (Snail) ------------------------------ Date: 11 Nov 83 12:41:13-PST (Fri) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: decvax!genrad!grkermit!masscomp!clyde!akgua!psuvax!psuvm%rak @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Getting in to KSC Can anyone tell me how to go about getting tickets or what the procedure is for gaining entrance to Kennedy Space Center to get a front seat view of a shuttle launch? Please either post to net.columbia or send me mail to the bitnet node psumvs userid rak. Thanks for any help I may get. ------------------------------ Date: 12 Nov 83 20:02:32-PST (Sat) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: decvax!tektronix!uw-beaver!ssc-vax!eder @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: Getting into KSC 13 November 1983 There are several ways to get access to the Kennedy Space Center during a shuttle launch. I am assuming you want to get as close as possible, and are therefore not satisfied to be 5-6 miles away around the periphery of the Center. One of the best places to watch from is the press grandstand. To get there you have to get press accreditation from NASA, which is a lengthy process. You have to convince them you are there for some news organization. In my case I was with my college radio station for STS-1. You write the Public Information Officer at KSC and ask for accreditation. The press grandstand is a good place to watch from since it is 3.5 miles from the pad. In front of the grandstand is an area for still and movie photographers, and forward of that is the countdown clock and the barge turning basin. You will be able to hear and see the 'NASA feed' over televisions set up around the area, and there will be a press building with lots of handouts and representatives of whatever payload is flying available for questions. Bring industrial strength mosquito repellant. The next best place is the VIP grandstand. It is near the VAB, about the same distance from the pad, but lacks all the nice information flow. It holds more people. You have to know someone to get there. Without knowing your individual situation, I would guess your congressman would be your best bet. It also lets him know someone is interested in space. Good luck! Dani Eder Boeing Aerospace ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 15-Nov-83 0304 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #37 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts at MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 37 Today's Topics: Re: Space Solar Power- -Cheap Stuff. Apollo 11 trivia ion pump for fetching gasses for space Re: ABM WEAPONS 3takes Re: SRB failure recovery PV Cell efficiency Death of IRAS Astronomical Journal reference wanted re: IRAS recovery Re: Launch Loop Shuttle Information star catalogs net.astro Re: Death of IRAS Re: Space Solar Power - (nf) beanstalks and space debris ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 12 November 1983 08:27 EST From: Robert Elton Maas Subject: Re: Space Solar Power- -Cheap Stuff. To: BollenG.ES @ PARC-MAXC cc: SPACE-ENTHUSIASTS @ MIT-MC There's a problem with using a simple barrier with sunward and darkward sides to drive a heat engine, rather than focussing the sunlight. If you focus the sunlight, you can approach the temperature of the Sun, i.e. 3000K, but if you merely face sunward you average the teensy Sun with all the black space around it and achieve only about "room temperature" of around 300K. On the dark side of course you get about 3K. But there's a temperature drop, analagous to the voltage drop in an electric circuit, because you are drawing (thermal) current between these two points, and there's not a direct contact between those points and the reference temperatures of 3K and 300K (or 3000K with focussing). Thus the sunward side may drop to 200K (or 2000K with focussing), while the darkward side may rise to 100K. The result is you're trying to run a heat engine with only a 3:2 ratio in temperatures, which gives a low conversion of energy-flow to useful power, in this case 3 units of incoming energy give 1 unit of useful power and 2 units of waste heat dumped out the darkward side. (The general rule is heat flow is proportional to temperature, and the difference is what you draw out in the form of useful power.) This is hardly what I'd call "very efficient". By comparison, with reflectors, and 2000K:100K = 20:1, you get 95% of your input energy converted to power instead of only 33%. Reflectors should be cheaper to build per unit area than conversion material, and the energy you produce doesn't have to be collected from a wide area if all light is focussed on a small convertor. The only main problem with reflectors is you have to carefully aim them toward the Sun all the time rather than just letting them face the general direction of the Sun. But all in all it seems reflectors are better than large conversion units. - Rebuttal anyone? ------------------------------ Date: 11 Nov 83 10:46:46-PST (Fri) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: decvax!decwrl!daemon @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Apollo 11 trivia Forwarded-From: Ed Featherston HL01-1/P06 225-5241 >From : DVINCI::FISHER Organization : Digital Equipment Corp. The computer overload was what caused the "Program Alarms" quite a bit earlier in the landing sequence. Armstrong took manual control over the landing because the computer was pointing them toward an area full of large boulders. (This is made clear in the transcript a few minutes after the small window we have been seeing here). I don't know if the manual landing affected what was said just after touchdown, but it sound to me like just a checklist that Aldrin is reading (is it really Aldrin?...the NY Times attributed the "Houston, Tranquillity Base here..." speech to Armstrong. Does anyone know any inside details on the computer alarm problem, why it never showed up before, and how it was fixed on later flights? Burns Mail address : ...decvax!decwrl!rhea!dvinci!fisher ------------------------------ Date: 12 November 1983 17:45 EST From: Robert Elton Maas Subject: ion pump for fetching gasses for space To: SPACE @ MIT-MC cc: POURNE @ MIT-MC Here's an idea I came up with this morning. If it's new, please let me know so I can file for patent. If it's old, please tell me whether the idea will work, what others have thought about it before, whether there are any plans to implement it. This is an alternative to a ramjet for scooping gasses out of the atmosphere of planets for use in space. Suppose we hang a tube from low-planetary-orbit into the atmosphere of that planet, and attach a scoop at the bottom to collect some gas. Inside the scoop we strip electrons from the atoms by a corona discharge with positive charge. We have a negatively-charged corona discharge up higher to attract the ions and to neutralize their charge and to provide the current return for the other electrode. We thus use an electric current to pump material from the bottom end to the top end of this tube. Unfortunately gravity isn't linear whereas charge mostly is, so if we use a single stage pump we'll have ions just barely starting their trip at the bottom and then encountering more and more net force as they reach te top, reaching relativistic speeds and emitting gamma rays as they strike the top. So what we do is break up the pump into segments short enough that along each segment the force of gravity is close enough to linear that by carefully adjusting the charge-difference along each segment we can avoid relativistic speeds. Alternately we can use the principle of the synchotron (I think that's the right one) which packs the ions into batches, using an alternating current, attracting a batch from above as it approaches a charge point then repelling it from below just after it passes that point, or using alternating magnetic fields to induce a pseudo-electric-field. In any case, with the device set to just barely capture the lightest ions, it'll get mostly Hydrogen, no matter which planet we fetch the gas from. Hydrogen just happens to be one of the elements we need most in space, because it isn't available in moon rocks in any reasonable quantity, so this is a "win". If we use Venus as our supplier, and we increase the charge so lots of different ions can be collected, we'll get lots of carbon dioxide and sulpheric acid in the scoop, supplying Carbon which is also in short supply on the Moon and of great use, and Sulfur. (We can discard most of the Oxygen since we'll be getting it in surplus from the Moon.) Of course this whole device will be powered by the Sun, using the derived electricity both to run the ion pump itself and to forcibly discard Oxygen and other waste as reaction mass to counteract atmospheric drag. ------------------------------ Date: 16 Nov 83 2:06:02-EST (Wed) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: ihnp4!zehntel!dual!fair @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: ABM WEAPONS 3takes If memory serves, the vast majority (70+%) of Soviet ICBMs are land-based, in the USSR, and the kind of defensive weapons discussed in the article would (presumably) be effective against that. But what about SLBMs and perhaps even a Soviet equivalent to the Cruise missile? wondering, Erik E. Fair {ucbvax,amd70,zehntel,unisoft}!dual!fair Dual Systems Corporation, Berkeley, California ------------------------------ Date: 11 Nov 83 14:05:07-PST (Fri) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: decvax!microsoft!uw-beaver!ssc-vax!eder @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: SRB failure recovery 11 November 1983 If one SRB fails to light on the pad or, alternatively, the holddown bolts on one side are not released, the results are catastrophic. In both cases the External Tank is immediately sheared (ripped in half the long way). The reason is there is a thrust beam inside the tank which crosses between the SRB's. It connects the forward ends of the SRB's to each other and to the skin of the ET. It is there to distribute any thrust imbalance between the SRB's equally among the vehicle components. The nozzles of the various engines are steerable to correct for this possibility. The thrust beam is sized for about a 10% difference in thrust. If one engine runs and the other doesn't, or one is freed from the pad and the other not, the ET will be ruptured. The ET is .1 inch aluminum, while the SRB's are more like 1 inch high strength steel. The tank goes first. During flight there is no way to shut down an SRB intentionally or accidentally short of destroying it. This is because the solid fuel contains both fuel and oxidizer. Once ignited, the combustion is self- sustaining. The combustion RATE is dependant on pressure. The only way to slow it down is to lower the pressure by blowing the nozzle out the rear end (which is not designed in), or by splitting the motor case with an explosive charge (which is). Pity the poor astronauts, since they will almost certainly die in any of these accidents. If you go to see a launch in person, be aware that the press and VIP viewing areas (3.5 mi from pad) are within shrapnel range should the vehicle explode on the pad. They told us this AFTER STS-1 (I was in the press area). Dani Eder Boeing Aerospace Company ssc-vax!eder ------------------------------ Date: 12 Nov 83 22:16:52-PST (Sat) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: decvax!duke!phs!jtb @ Ucb-Vax Subject: PV Cell efficiency As I understand it another advantage of GaAs cells is their ability to operate in concentrated sunlight so that part of a GaAs collector can be cheap mirrors directing sunlight to a smaller active region. Does this work with these combined Si-GaAs cells? Jose Torre-Bueno decvax!duke!phs!jtb ------------------------------ Date: 12 Nov 83 21:58:22-PST (Sat) To: space@mit-mc From: sri-unix!decvax!duke!giles@ucf-cs.UUCP (Bruce Giles)@CCA Subject: Death of IRAS Is there any way to "recycle" IRAS? I seem to recall reading that IRAS is in orbit 500 miles up, within range of the Shuttle. Since we have been receiving such excellent data, it seems a shame we will have to wait nearly a decade for the next satellite. Especially since the satellite's death will be due to loss of LHe. I know that NASA requires that a satellite be "alive" before it will risk an orbiter to retrieve it. How soon is it until IRAS loses power and/or control in addition to LHe? Does it have a docking pin? Could NASA add a trip to IRAS onto the end of an existing orbiter mission? Should we be forming a "SAVE IRAS" mini-pac? Bruce Giles decvax!ucf-cs!giles (UUCP) UCF, Dept of Math, Orlando Fl 32816 (Snail) ------------------------------ Date: 12 Nov 83 22:07:57-PST (Sat) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: ihnp4!ihuxr!lew @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Astronomical Journal reference wanted I'm wondering if someone with access to the "Astronomical Journal" (circa 1973) wouldn't mind too much looking up an article by S. J. Goldstein, Jr. , J. D. Trasco, and T. J. Ogburn reporting their reevaluation of Ole Roemer's speed of light measurement. They took 40 timings of disappear- ances and reappearances of Io and fit them to predictions based on modern orbital data. Specifically, I would like to know their best fit "c" value, and most importantly, their estimation of the probable error. This article was mentioned in the "News Notes" column of the June '73 Sky & Telescope, but the specific AJ issue wasn't given. Please mail to me or post to the net. Thanks. Lew Mammel, Jr. ihuxr!lew ------------------------------ Date: 13 Nov 83 7:31:38-PST (Sun) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: harpo!floyd!vax135!ukc!dgd @ Ucb-Vax Subject: re: IRAS recovery On a tv interview with one of the IRAS team I heard it said that it will take approximately 10 years to analyse the data from IRAS. This might be one reason why recovery of the device is not a top priority. I believe that there are two more IR astronomical satellites planned, though, but do not know when they are to be launched. dgd. ------------------------------ Date: 14 Nov 1983 10:33-PST From: dietz%usc-cse%USC-ECL@SRI-NIC To: space@mit-mc Cc: judd@umcp-cs Subject: Re: Launch Loop Having put up such a large loop of iron and got it [spinning] - what [happens] if something large hits it and breaks it or even distorts it enough to contact the ground?? If the launch loop fails the energy has to be dissipated somehow. The biggest part of the loop, the part at 120 km, is travelling faster than escape velocity and is outside the atmosphere; it will go into orbit around the sun. The parts on the circular tracks can either be directed into the air (where they vaporize) or be shot up the ramps into solar orbit. Alternately, the loop could be broken at one point, and the strip then fed into some energy dump (which could be nothing more than a large pile of dirt). The biggest problem is recovering the magnets and electronics suspended below the loop. Equip them with parachutes, maybe? The energy storage loop would have all the expensive parts (magnets and control) to the inside of the moving metal; any failure causes the loop to fragment and fly out tangentially. Some sort of energy absorbing material will have to interposed between the loop and the vacuum chamber wall (gravel? plastic? armor?). Energy could be dumped from the loop at one point, again by breaking the loop and feeding the strip down a pipe into an energy dump. ------------------------------ Date: 14 Nov 83 11:26:43 PST (Monday) Subject: Shuttle Information To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC.ARPA cc: Gobbel.pa@PARC-MAXC.ARPA From: Randy Gobbel Does anyone know who to contact, and how, to get information on shuttle flights - schedules, how to get in to see launches, etc.? I'm specifically interested in going to Edwards to see a landing. -Randy ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 13 Nov 83 22:09:40 CST From: Mike Caplinger Return-Path: Subject: star catalogs To: sky-fans@mit-xx, space@mit-mc Message-Id: Does anyone have a machine-readable copy of either the SKYMAP or SAO star catalogs? SAO only seems to come in 556 bpi 7-track, and I can't get the author of the SKYMAP paper to respond to me. Anyone have better luck? Please respond directly to me as I am not on these lists. Thanks, Mike Caplinger mike.rice@rand-relay (Arpa) mike@rice (CSNet) lbl-csam!rice!mike (UUCP) ------------------------------ Date: 14 Nov 83 14:47:35-PST (Mon) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: hplabs!hao!kpno!astrovax!wls @ Ucb-Vax Subject: net.astro I would like to propose the establishment of net.astro. This group would be for topics in and relating to astronomy. It would NOT be about the space program, which is the territory of net.space. In a sense I am proposing to split the discussion of purely astronomical topics from net.space. There is much excitement going on in astronomy and many people with access to the net who could contribute information on what is currently happening (indeed many of those people are making it happen). Many (perhaps, judging from the people at Princeton, I could even say most) of these people keep silent because they are not very interested in the contents of net.space (and often, not very interested in the contents of the rest of the net itself). I am proposing a news group for these people, to bring them out of the woodwork. And I think that news of what is happening in astronomy is exciting enough to be of interest to the general public. Perhaps what I am really proposing is a net.astro.wizards, in analogy with net.unix-wizards. Just plain net.astro would then be for questions of the order of "Why does the moon look larger at the horizon?" which would be unwelcome in net.astro.wizards. If amateur astronomers wished to establish a group to discuss topics of interest to them they could call it something like net.astro.amateur. Comments? Please feel free to mail comments to me or post them to this group on the net. This article been posted after consultation with the members of the Department here, as well has some of the astronomers at the Institute for Advanced study. -- Bill Sebok Princeton Univ. Astrophysics {allegra,akgua,burl,cbosgd,decvax,ihnp4,knpo,princeton}!astrovax!wls ------------------------------ Date: 13 Nov 83 19:58:59-PST (Sun) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: harpo!seismo!hao!kpno!grandi @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: Death of IRAS Unfortunately, IRAS is in a near polar orbit (actually a sun synchronous orbit) and was launched from Vandenbergh Air Force Base, not Cape Canaveral. Therefore, until Shuttle launches from Vandnbergh start to happen (at least several years), IRAS could not be reached. In any case, I'm sure that IRAS would be very difficult to reach in orbit; probably won't fit in the shuttle bay; and the expense of such a mission would no dobut be better spent on engineering the successor missions. ------------------------------ Date: 13 Nov 83 23:22:37-PST (Sun) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: pur-ee!uiucdcs!uok!dswankii @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: Space Solar Power - (nf) Do areas like, say, Death Valley reflect energy (heat) in such a way that it can escape into space? Obviously light can get out else you couldn't see the land masses from space but heat is a much longer wave than visible light. My reason for asking is: if sunlight comes in a window, more energy comes in than escapes by reflection. If this is true in the case of Death Valley then you wouldn't increase the heat load of the planet. Please; no flames. If I'm wrong send me a letter telling me why. David Swank II ctvax!uokvax!uok!dswankii ------------------------------ Date: 15 November 1983 05:22 EST From: Robert Elton Maas Subject: beanstalks and space debris To: JoSH @ RUTGERS cc: SPACE @ MIT-MC Aha, you're right, thanks for correcting me, and let me correct you slightly. If the period of the stalk and the random other satellite are commensurable, and if they don't collide within LCM(p1,p2) where p1 and p2 are the two periods, and if they remain locked in that same period and also remain locked in the same inclination, then they'll never collide. If the stalk is massive enough, perhaps it'll gravitationally-purturb all the other sattelites enough to lock them into such commensurable orbits, so all we have to do is calculate the present orbits of all satellites and debris currently existing and then plan the stalk to be in the right spot to miss everything long enough for everything to be purturbed into such locked commensurable orbits. Is any existing computer capable of that calculation? Imagine after we go extinct our stalk remains, and some alien civilization observing our planet from far enough away they can't see the stalk itself notices the strange resonance orbits of all the debris and wonders what unseen moonlet could possibly be purturbing everything into that strange pattern. (In case you missed my slight correction, I changed "multiple" to "commensurable" and changed "one period of lesser satellite" to "LCM of periods of stalk and lesser satellite", a generalization of your obsrvation.) ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 16-Nov-83 0304 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #38 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts at MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 38 Today's Topics: BC-X-RAY ZAPSAT 2takes Truax IEEE Spectrum Sept. 83 articles - (nf) "An Evening with Robert Truax" re: IRAS recovery ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 14 Nov 83 2046 PST From: Hans Moravec Subject: BC-X-RAY ZAPSAT 2takes To: space@MIT-MC, arms-d@MIT-MC n048 1253 14 Nov 83 By WILLIAM J. BROAD c.1983 N.Y. Times News Service NEW YORK - A top candidate has emerged in the Reagan administration's quest for a technology to defend the United States from assault by enemy missiles. It would be smaller, cheaper and more powerful than other futuristic devices put forward in response to the president's ''Star Wars'' speech, an appeal eight months ago for the nation's scientists to develop what he called defensive shield in space. At the core of the leading candidate to perform that task is a small nuclear bomb. Known as an X-ray laser, the device takes the power of a nuclear explosion and channels it into laser rods that emit lethal bursts of radiation in space. According to scientists at the Lawrence Livermore Laboratory in California, the birthplace of the device, clusters of X-ray lasers could, for example, stop the entire force of strategic Soviet missiles, currently some 1,500 strong. The lasers would literally pound the rockets apart with powerful X-ray beams. A presidential panel recently called on the government to devote $895 million over the next five years to develop the X-ray laser - more than it recommended for any other technology uncovered in its search, as President Reagan put it, for the means of rendering nuclear weapons ''impotent and obsolete.'' But skeptics abound. Will the device really work? Can systems to locate speeding booster rockets and to aim lasers at them be accurate and fast enough? And would deployment of X-ray lasers tip the balance of terror that has kept an uneasy peace between the superpowers for nearly a third of a century? Even defenders of the X-ray laser say it poses serious questions. ''There are very few technologies in the history of warfare that have been either totally offensive or totally defensive,'' said Dr. Paul L. Chrzanwski, head of military evaluation and planning at Livermore. ''If you can shoot down boosters, it's equally plausible that you could shoot down satellites.'' The Livermore atomic scientists, add however, that an examination of the device, to the extent permitted by rules of government secrecy, reveals a unique technology that is ideal for protecting the West. What makes lasers so attractive for defense is their tight, pencillike beams of coherent radiation, waves of electromagnetic energy that move in step with one another. Laser beams can bore through metal and bounce off the moon. In contrast, a flashlight produces a jumbled beam of incoherent radiation that spreads out quickly and disappears in the night. X-ray lasers, moreover, can efficiently tap the titantic energy of a nuclear bomb. The energy released in a single atomic reaction is millions of times greater than in a single chemical one. According to Livermore scientists, this makes X-ray weapons many times more effective than chemical lasers, such as ones studied by the Department of Defense that combine hydrogen and fluorine in a violent reaction that can be made to create flashing beams of light. The atomic potential is tapped when nuclear fire strikes the laser rods - whose composition and design is secret - filling the rods with energy and exciting their electrons so that they spin around the nuclei of the atoms in expanded orbits. The fall of the electrons back to their normal orbits - almost in a cascade - then creates a beam of coherent radiation. If these electrons convert just one-millionth of the energy of a megaton bomb - a minimum figure often cited by the scientists - then each laser beam that emerges from the device packs the punch of a ton of TNT, or about the energy that recently leveled the Marine compound in Beirut. X-rays would move toward their target at the speed of light. In the split second before they hit, a missile would travel at most a few yards. The burst of radiation would explosively evaporate the booster's skin, launching a shock wave that destroys electronic controls, rocket fuel and engine parts. The distant rumble of the X-ray laser has been heard on at least three occasions at the government's underground test site in Nevada, starting in 1980. The beam from the first test was reportedly so strong that it knocked out equipment meant to measure the radiation. One of the inventors of the X-ray laser, Dr. George F. Chapline Jr., is a theoretical physicist who, sporting a corduroy coat with an open collar, looks like the college professor he used to be. Every so often his eyebrows come together in a look of puzzled wonder, as if some apparently ordinary part of the universe holds secrets just waiting to be uncovered. Last February the Department of Energy, which finances the nation's nuclear weapons laboratories, gave him its highest award, citing his ''highly creative applications of atomic, nuclear and statistical physics to important national security problems.'' An attraction of the X-ray laser, according to Dr. Chapline, is that it can be used only in the vacuum of space and ''not against cities and people.'' This is because X-rays, whose wavelengths are extremely short, are quickly absorbed by individual atoms in the earth's atmosphere. But impenetrability is also a flaw, according to such critics as Dr. Richard L. Garwin, an IBM researcher and Pentagon consultant. To outwit the laser, he said in an interview, the Soviet Union needs only to increase the rate at which its boosters burn fuel, so engines are turned off and less vulnerable by the time they leave the earth's atmosphere. The Livermore scientists dismiss this kind of criticism, saying the precise power of the laser and the small divergence of beams as they shoot through space - both measurements are top national secrets - insure penetration deep enough into the thin upper atmosphere to foil such tactics. A key factor in favor of the X-ray laser, according to Dr. Lowell L. Wood, a Livermore physicist and co-inventor of the device, is its low price. He said each one might cost $2 million, half for the nuclear bomb and the rest for hardware. In contrast, an MX missile costs about $100 million. Low cost also lessens the competition's allure, Wood said. Some of the large battle stations on the Pentagon's wish list would cost between $2 and $5 billion, and boosting them into space would cost an additional $100 million. What all this means, according to Wood, is that the X-ray laser would be smaller, cheaper and more powerful than other exotic technologies. Small size is important, he added, because during an attack the device could be launched into space at a moment's notice. In contrast, bulky systems such as particle beams, chemical lasers and electromagnetic rail guns often would need to be launched in advance, and thus vulnerable to sneak attack while orbiting the Earth. Praise for the X-ray proposal is anything but universal at Livermore. Dr. Hugh DeWitt, a physicist who works on classified projects, said X-ray advocates are biased because huge infusions of money are at stake. ''There's lots of hype in the group,'' he said. ''The basic physics of the X-ray laser is O.K., but it's quite likely that difficulties of system integration will defeat it.'' Moreover, some experts are skeptical on historic grounds, saying the United States to date has spent about $25 billion in a futile quest for an invulnerable defense. According to Dr. Herbert York, the first director of Livermore, ''one of the outstanding delusions of recent times has been the notion that a technological means for defending the nation against a general nuclear attack is just around the corner.'' Finally, critics say even a perfect defense would be a threat to world stability. An aggressor might use X-ray lasers to knock out key military satellites or, after a massive pre-emptive attack, to brush aside a victim's feeble response. Indeed, that possibility worries scientists at Livermore. ''Anything this country is doing along these lines would be characterized as a defensive,'' said Chrzanwoski, head of evaluation and planning. ''But I think that if the Soviets came up with the same technology, I would be a little bit nervous about possible offensive uses.'' The Soviet Union once had a large number of research groups that published extensively on the theory of X-ray lasers, according to Wood. But the reports suddenly dried up in 1977, leading to speculation among atomic scientists that the Soviet program is now highly classified. Wood, a key spokesman at Livermore for the X-ray laser, is clearly unmoved by the skeptics. He is a large, energetic man with a quick smile and a steady eye. He answers objections with a patience that bespeaks great confidence. The world is approaching a watershed, he said. One X-ray laser, costing a few million dollars, will be able to knock out a trillion dollars worth of boosters, radically changing the economics of nuclear deterrence. He further insists that the best way to avoid political instabilities - and, in fact, the ultimate goal of the whole program - is for the superpowers to destroy their offensive nuclear arsenals and replace them with defensive shields. ''The offensive approach to geopolitics is intrinsically unstable and unsatisfactory and thus doomed to fail,'' he said. ''I'm worried that when failure occurs, it will be catastrophic.'' nyt-11-14-83 1558est ------------------------------ Date: 16 Nov 83 01:02:49 EST From: JoSH Subject: Truax To: space@MIT-MC.ARPA I'm wondering if anyone knows any more about the following project. This is a condensation of an article that appeared in Commercial Space Report and in Claustrophobia: The subject is a launch vehicle called Seadragon (and the 20-year development program Truax plans to culminate in it). The basic idea is to make it super huge, 40 million pounds, so that the efficiencies of scale allow it to be built with ordinary (shipbuilding) construction techniques and materials. The design is unconventional. Liquid fuel, low pressure, single engine rockets. First stage LOX and RP-1 (what's RP-1?) operating at 300 psi (!), second stage LOX/LH 60 psi (!!). The second stage has a large umbrella-like extension for the nozzle which is wrapped around the first stage before separation. Sea-launched. Both stages sea-recovered. Payload to LEO of 1.5 million pounds. They are shooting for $20/lb. Sounds intriguing. --JoSH ------------------------------ Date: 14 Nov 83 20:04:09-PST (Mon) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: hplabs!hpda!fortune!notes @ Ucb-Vax Subject: IEEE Spectrum Sept. 83 articles - (nf) The September 1983 issue of IEEE's Spectrum has an interesting series of articles on space `commemerating' NASA's 25th anniversary. They are well worth reading. Dave Olson, Fortune Systems {harpo, hpda, ihnp4}!fortune!olson ------------------------------ Date: 15 Nov 83 23:39:05 PST (Tuesday) Subject: "An Evening with Robert Truax" To: Space@MIT-MC.ARPA cc: Hamilton.ES@PARC-MAXC.ARPA From: Bruce Hamilton Reply-To: Hamilton.ES@PARC-MAXC.ARPA Los Angeles Space fans: OASIS/ L5 General Meeting, free and open to the public TIME: 7pm this Saturday, 19 November 1983 PLACE: Kinsey Auditorium California Museum of Science and Industry Exposition Park (just SW of Exposition and Figueroa) ABSTRACT: Imagine a rocket so huge that its launch weight can only be supported by sea water. It is towed to its launch site and roars into space, placing 1.5 million pounds (750 tons) into Earth orbit. Sea Dragon, as this rocket is called, is the dream of Robert Truax. Truax, a true rocket pioneer, designed the rocket that powered the X-1, the first plane to break the sound barrier. He also helped develop the Polaris and Atlas rocket engines. Come and hear Robet Truax on this and other topics. --Bruce ------------------------------ Date: 16 November 1983 04:14 EST From: Robert Elton Maas Subject: re: IRAS recovery To: harpo!floyd!vax135!ukc!dgd @ UCB-VAX cc: SPACE @ MIT-MC Ten years to analyze IRAS data?? Let's get funding to put more computers to work analyzing the data!! Then when we expect it to be all analyzed within a year, let's revive IRAS! ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 17-Nov-83 0302 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #39 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts at MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 39 Today's Topics: Re: ABM WEAPONS 3takes ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 14 Nov 83 13:18:37-PST (Mon) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: pur-ee!CS-Mordred!Pucc-H.Physics.els @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: ABM WEAPONS 3takes In answer to the question about SLBM's and cruise's, SLBM's would get picked up in the boost phase and cruise's can be detected in the infrared from a satellite. The ABM system can get the SLBM's and the Air Force (or Air National Guard) can presumably get the cruise's. els[Eric Strobel] pur-ee!Physics:els ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 18-Nov-83 0303 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #40 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts at MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 40 Today's Topics: Re: Apollo Program (Semi-Trivia) Questio - (nf) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 15 Nov 83 18:40:36-PST (Tue) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: harpo!seismo!philabs!cmcl2!lanl-a!jlg @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: Apollo Program (Semi-Trivia) Questio - (nf) The landing computer was not 'overloaded', it was taking them into a large field of boulders. Armstrong voluntarily took over flight controls to land in a safer area. ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 19-Nov-83 0302 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #41 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts at MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 41 Today's Topics: Air Force, Space Force 1984 SPace shuttle schedule Cosmonauts returning ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 18 Nov 83 10:47 PST From: SWigdor.es@PARC-MAXC.ARPA Subject: Air Force, Space Force To: Space@MIT-MC.ARPA Reply-To: SWigdor.ES@PARC-MAXC.ARPA Some interesting topics I ran across in the DOD Small Business Innovation Research Program FY 1984 solicatation. It is alway nice to see how the Air Force wants to militarize the conquest of space. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- TITLE: Trans-Atmospheric Launch of Boost Glide Vehicles Descripition: Boost Glide Vehicles (BGV) possessing high hypersonic L/D (>3.5) offer several potential strategic, long range operational capabilities useful in future systems. Current effors are underway to evaluate the utility of BGVs in the ground and air-launch modes not only for application in future systems but also as a research vehicle to explore lifting reentry technologies. This approach would couple with that effort. What is needed is the conceptual analysis of applying boost glide vehicles to launch from a vehicle in orbital and suborbital flight. The aeromechanics and dynamics problems associated with launch and atmospheric flight of the BGV need to be understood. The advantages of conducting high-speed research technology development and demonstration for this class of vehicles should be examined. Initial velocitites of the BGV will range from M 15 to orbital speeds. Its high energy will provide it with a ground impact footprint over a significant area of the earths surface. This suggests unique approaches to test range requirements for a research vehicle and highly flexible strategic operational capability. The exploitation of these unique flight characterictics must be understood and taken advantage of in any conceptual investigation. TITLE: Take-off Augmentation Devices for SSTO Reusable On-Demand Launch Sortie Vehicles Descripition: Operational requirements for on-demand single stage-to-orbit (SSTO) vehicles strongly suggest a horizontal take-off, horizontal landing vehicle. Rapid turn around and improved logistics are two of the benefits of this concept approach. However, The technology demands of a SSTO concept places it in a high development risk category with a relatively far term development time. To lower risk and development time and minimize gross-lift-off-weight (GLOW), the use of a sled like device on take-off has been suggested. Some limited evaluation of this concept has taken place. These earlier investigations indecate that SSTO vehicle feasibility exists through elimination of on-board take-off gear, and impacting high SSTO lift off velocites. Several devices that have been suggested include a rail-launcher, a multi-wheeled towable and steerable launcher, and an air-cushioned launcher. Survivability demands strongly suggest the launch concept include the capability to flush the empty SSTP vehicle to another base on warning and provide launch capability after flushing. this suggests a flyable launch device. Concepts for SSTO ground launch assist are needed for vehicles in one to one- and-a-half million pounds gross ligt-off weight class with lift-off velocities of appoximately 300 knots. Conceptual data required for such devices include propulsion system, aerodynamic performance capabilities, alternate base of ferry capability, runway and basing requirements, and rapid turnaround capability. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Interesting stuff, sounds like a fighter plane/shuttle which performs like a X-20 class vehicle and which could perform missions as a ground or air based vehicle or as a orbital based vehicle. Its hard to imagine how much they are going to get on these subjects from a research program (SBIR) which only funds up to 1 man-year for companies of under 500 employees. But if the Air Force thinks it can get good proposals from this what is to stop us from doing this type of R&D either for them or privately. I always felt that a private space shuttle would have to be of the X-15, X-20 type air dropped from a cargo type plane. This is probably the best approach to utilize present technology in a reusable space system. Gee a privately funded shuttle and if we can purchase the NASA external tanks we could have a space station too in probably the same time frame as NASA and its fancy station. If anybody is interested in discussing this you can message me via the net and if that doesn't work here is the rest of the info: SWigdor.es@Parc-Maxc.Arpa Sheldon Wigdor Xerox 701 S. Aviation Blvd ms A2-34 El Segudo Ca 90245 213-536-7477 ------------------------------ Date: 18 Nov 83 1825 PST From: Ross Finlayson Subject: 1984 SPace shuttle schedule To: space@MIT-MC a033 0132 18 Nov 83 PM-Astronauts,330 Ten Shuttle Flights to Make 1984 NASA's Busiest Year SPACE CENTER, Houston (AP) - NASA is planning its busiest year ever in 1984, with astronauts on 10 space shuttle flights to launch satellites, monitor experiments and test rocket belts that let them fly in space unattached to the shuttle. Commander Robert L. Crippen, who has flown the most shuttle missions so far, is scheduled for two more missions, and six women will be among the 50 astronauts to go into orbit next year, the space agency said Thursday. The first flight - Mission 41B scheduled for Jan. 29 - will include a spacewalk by Bruce McCandless to test the rocket belt, called the Manned Manuevering Unit. If that test is successful, the unit will be used by George D. Nelson on Mission 41C to repair a broken satellite. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration identifies missions by code, such as 41B. The ''4'' designates the fiscal year of the flight - 1984. The ''1'' is the launch site - Kennedy Space Center. And the ''B'' indicates the sequence. More than a dozen satellites will be launched, while Mission 41E on July 14 is to carry a secret Defense Department cargo and an unidentified cargo specialist from the department. Sally K. Ride, who was America's first woman in space, will be joined by Kathryn Sullivan, Crippen and two other astronauts for Mission 41G, set for launch Aug. 30. Ms. Ride's husband, Steven Hawley, is scheduled for Mission 41D, set for launch on June 4. Two other husband-wife teams are also on the 1984 roster. Dr. Rhea Seddon will fly on Mission 41F on Aug. 9, while her husband, Robert L. Gibson will fly on 41B. Dr. Anna Fisher will fly on 41H in September and her husband, Dr. William F. Fisher, will fly on 51C in December. The launch standby crew will be Karol Bobko, commander; Ronald J. Grade, pilot; Richard M. Mullane, Robert L. Stewart and David C. Hilmers, mission specialists. They will fly if a flight not now scheduled is later planned. ap-ny-11-18 0430EST ********** ------------------------------ Date: 19 Nov 83 0107 PST From: Rod Brooks Subject: Cosmonauts returning To: space@MIT-MC MOSCOW (AP) - The official Soviet news agency Tass says two cosmonauts aboard the orbiting Salyut 7 space station for nearly five months will return to Earth in a few days. ''The cosmonauts will start preparations in the coming days for their return,'' Tass said Friday. ''They are to mothball the Salyut 7 station, (and) carry into and stack in the transport ship Soyuz T-9 materials on research conducted in orbit.'' U.S. intelligence sources have said the Soyuz T-9 has weak batteries and its fuel is nearly evaporated, making the the cosmonauts' return possibly risky. The Soviets have denied there have been any problems. Cosmonauts Alexander Alexandrov and Vladimir Lyakhov began their mission June 27 aboard the Soyuz T-9, which docked the next day with the space station. ap-ny-11-19 0347EST *************** ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 20-Nov-83 0303 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #42 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts at MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 42 Today's Topics: Space Station Science Digest - (nf) A Bibliography of Mathematical Astronomy Re: ABM WEAPONS 3takes Re: ukc.3929: The Great Silence re: IRAS recovery South Atlantic Anomaly (?) Re: IRAS running down ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 16 Nov 83 17:41:11-PST (Wed) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: ihnp4!astrovax!ks @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Space Station In-Reply-To: Article <2367@hp-pcd.UUCP>, <3701@umcp-cs.UUCP> <3799@lanl-a.UUCP> Organization: Princeton Univ. Astrophysics Lines: 15 In an interview with WPRB radio station here, representative Don Fuqua (chairman of the House committee on Science & Technology, which oversees space programs) has said that "reliable information" he has indicates that the president is planning "to include funding for, and a commitment to" a permantently manned space station in low Earth orbit in the fiscal 1985 budget. The figure he quoted was $200 million for the initial year, going up in successive years. NASA administrator Dr. James Beggs, who we interviewed for the same radio program, was not as definite about this. Fuqua did not give a date for when this decision would be announced. Fuqua made his statement just over two weeks ago. Karl Stapelfeldt Frank Lemoine WPRB news & Princeton SEDS ------------------------------ Date: 24 Nov 83 0:23:32-EST (Thu) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: pur-ee!uiucdcs!uok!lllenoir @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Science Digest - (nf) #N:uok:7900002:000:199 uok!lllenoir Nov 14 10:04:00 1983 I've seen an awful lot of stuff on the net about 'Space Digest'. I'm new on the net.. could some one please explain? It sounds quite interesting.. Lionel U. of OK ------------------------------ Date: 17 Nov 83 11:56:47-PST (Thu) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: ihnp4!ihuxh!rjh @ Ucb-Vax Subject: A Bibliography of Mathematical Astronomy (-) Practical Astronomy with your calculator Author: Peter Duffett-Smith Publisher: Cambridge University Press @ London, New York, Syndey, et al. Published: 1981 Comments: Contains good explainations easily worked on a calculator. Mathematical Astronomy with a Pocket Calculator Author: Aubrey Jones FRAS Published: 1978 Publisher: David & Charles @ Newton Abbot and London Comments: Contains many programs for HP 67 or HP 41 calculators. Astronomical Formulae for Calculators Author: Jean Meeus, Vereniging voor Sterrenkunde Belgium Publisher: Willman-Bell, Inc., P.O. Box 3125, Richmond, VA 23235, USA (804) 320-7016 Published: 1982 Comments: The title is a misnomer unless you consider a HP-85 a calculator. Formulae are presented not programs. If you are interested in astronomy, you ought to get this publisher's catalog. Astronomical Tables of the Sun, Moon, and Planets Author: Jean Meeus, Vereniging voor Sterrenkunde Belgium Publisher: Willman-Bell, Inc., P.O. Box 3125, Richmond, VA 23235, USA (804) 320-7016 Published: 1983 Comments: This book is 'companion volume' to the previous book giving computed results. Low-Precision Formulae for Planetary Positions in 'The Astrophysical Journal' Author: T.C. Van Flandern and K . F Pulkkinen Publisher: The American Astronomical Society by University of Chicago Press 5801 S. Ellis Avenue, Chicago, IL 60637, USA Published: November 1979 ess Comments: A how-to-compute 'cookbook'. 'This paper gives low-precision (1') formulae for geocentric and heliocentric positions of the Sun, Moon, and planets, which are valid for any epoch within 300 years of the present.' Textbook on Spherical Astronomy Author: W. M. Smart, revised by R. M. Green Publisher: Cambridge University Press (see above) Published: 1980 (1st ed. 1931) Comments: Textbook. Good for a beginner. College freshman math. Considered a classic reference. Computational Spherical Astronomy Author: Laurence G. Taff Publisher: John Wiley & Sons @ New York, Chichester, Brisbane, et al. Published: 1981 Comments: Textbook. Good for a beginner. College freshman math. Intended for engineers and other such users. Almanac for Computers (numbered by year) Publisher: Nautical Almanac Office, United States Naval Observatory, Washington, DC 20390 Published: yearly Comments: Very high precision Chebyshev short term (e.g. 1 month) formulae suitable for hand calculator (programability is nice but not really necessary). American Practical Navigator (2 vols) Author: originally Nathaniel Bowditch, LL.D. 1773-1838 Publisher: (United States) Defense Mapping Agency Hydrographic Center Published: 1977 (1st Vol) 1975 (2nd Vol) Comments: Textbook. Very good for a beginner. Elementary school math. Intended for seaman with about 8th grade education. Teachs the why's, how's and needed mathematics to work astronomical problems associated with navigation. The second volume contains the necessary tables. The Astronomical Almanac (numbered by year) Publisher: Nautical Almanac Office, United States Naval Observatory, Washington, DC 20390 & Her Majesty's Nautical Almanac Office, Royal Greenwich Observatory, East Sussex, BN27 1RP, England Published: yearly Comments: Reference tables with some text. Can be ordered from: 1. Superintendent of Documents, US Government Printing Office, Washington, DC 20402 2. Her Majesty's Stationery Office, P.O. Box 569, London SE1 9NH, England Explanatory Supplement to the Astronomical Ephemeris and the American Ephemeris and Nautical Almanac Publisher: Nautical Almanac Office, United States Naval Observatory, Washington, DC 20390 & Her Majesty's Nautical Almanac Office, Royal Greenwich Observatory, East Sussex, BN27 1RP, England Published: 1961 Comments: Reference. Title describes relationship to The Astronomical Almanac described above. Can be ordered from: 1. Pendragon, 2595 E. Bayshore Road, Palto Alto, CA 94303, USA 2. Her Majesty's Stationery Office, P.O. Box 569, London SE1 9NH, England I did not list those books which I commonly find in city public librarys There are many other good reference books. Randolph J. Herber, Amdahl Systems Engineer, ..!ihnp4!ihuxh!rjh, c/o IH 1C220, AT&T Bell Labs, Naperville, IL 60566, (312) 979-6554 or AT&T Cornet 8-367-6554, or Amdahl Corp., Suite 250, 6400 Shafer, Rosemont, IL 60018, (312) 692-7520 ------------------------------ Date: 16 Nov 83 17:15:42-PST (Wed) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: harpo!seismo!philabs!linus!utzoo!henry @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: ABM WEAPONS 3takes In-Reply-To: Article <13399@sri-arpa.UUCP>, <148@dual.UUCP>, <1108@pur-phy.UUCP> Eric Strobel observes, in connection with intercepting SLBMs and cruise missiles: ...and the Air Force (or Air National Guard) can presumably get the cruise's. Surely you jest. The USAF long ago gave up any serious capability to defend the continental US against air attack. The resources allocated to strategic air defence are adequate to keep snooping reconnaissance planes out and that's about it. -- Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology {allegra,ihnp4,linus,decvax}!utzoo!henry ------------------------------ Date: 17 Nov 83 15:44:11-PST (Thu) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: decvax!ittvax!dcdwest!sdcsvax!sdccs6! @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: ukc.3929: The Great Silence In-Reply-To: Article <2132@phs.UUCP> Yes, the David Brin who wrote StarTide Rising is the same David Brin who wrote about The Great Silence. David is a member of University of Californa space program, or CalSpace, which is California's own little space program. It is based here at UCSD. It was started by Gov. Brown( thats where he got the nickname 'governer moonbeam'). It is quite active in the field of the external tank, with all sorts of far out applications, with things like kelvar cables and the such. It is my understanding, from david, that NASA farms all of its 'far out' research to CalSpace. I have been quite impressed by the people that I have met who are involved in the organization. As an aside, I saw the 'RIGHT STUFF' with david and a group from CalSpace, we all seemed to enjoy it a lot. CalSpace sponsers a series of lectures here at UCSD. Anyone wishing to be placed on there mailing list can contact them here at UCSD, or drop be a note and I have you added to it. Yours, Don Coleman sdccs6!iy120 { UCSD } ------------------------------ Date: 17 Nov 83 16:57:36-PST (Thu) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: ihnp4!astrovax!elt @ Ucb-Vax Subject: re: IRAS recovery In-Reply-To: Article <13699@sri-arpa.UUCP> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- The problem with reducing IRAS data is almost certainly *not* computer time. The limiting resource in almost all such scientific problems is the human brain time (i.e., attention by some competent researcher) needed to understand the results. ------------------------------ Date: 19-Nov-83 15:18 PST From: William Daul - Tymshare Inc. Cupertino CA Subject: South Atlantic Anomaly (?) To: space@mit-mc, physics@sri-unix Cc: menlo70!johnston@ucbvax Message-ID: <[OFFICE-2]TYM-WBD-3L11M> Could someone please send me a note as to what the south atlantic anomaly is? If anyone have any recommended reading...I would appreciate that also. Thanks, --Bi<< ------------------------------ Date: 18 Nov 83 16:19:35-PST (Fri) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: decvax!genrad!security!linus!utzoo!henry @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: IRAS running down In-Reply-To: Article <13681@sri-arpa.UUCP> IRAS probably needs to be refilled *before* it runs out completely, or there is some risk of damage to its detectors from thermal shock in warming up and then cooling down again. There was some sort of problem during its development -- I forget just what -- and there was a big debate at the time about whether they should risk warming it up to fix it. Given this difficulty, it probably doesn't make much sense to try to refill its liquid-helium tank unless it can be done within the next couple of months, which is probably impractical. I would also suspect that it is not designed for an in-space refill, and possibly not designed to be refilled at all. -- Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology {allegra,ihnp4,linus,decvax}!utzoo!henry ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 21-Nov-83 0304 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #43 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts at MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 43 Today's Topics: ion pumps Re: net.astro Non-equatorial Launch Loops / opposing-parallel configuration Pravda report on cosmonauts Re: ABM WEAPONS 3takes re: IRAS recovery Re: CAN ANYONE TELL ME HOW TO GO ABOUT GETTING TICKETS ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 16 Nov 83 14:17:18-PST (Wed) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: decvax!duke!crm @ Ucb-Vax Subject: ion pumps This ion pump thing sounds like a great thing, but if we're looking for hydrogen, why go anywhere? Isn't the interplanetary gas mostly H and He? Is the density enough to make this worthwhile? (If this is a really dumb idea, be gentle; I know I know almost nothing about this stuff...) ------------------------------ Date: 18 Nov 83 23:36:18-PST (Fri) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: decvax!microsoft!uw-beaver!teltone!teldata!mce @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: net.astro In-Reply-To: Article <124@astrovax.UUCP> Yes to net.astro! As I see it net.space should be sufficient for less technical discussions. ------------------------------ Date: 20 November 1983 21:25 EST From: Robert Elton Maas Subject: Non-equatorial Launch Loops / opposing-parallel configuration To: "sri-unix!decvax!duke!giles@ucf-cs.UUCP " @ CCA-UNIX cc: SPACE @ MIT-MC Having the loop flattened into two parallel tracks with a small turnaround loop at each end means there'll be no net sidewards or rotational motion due to gyroscopic, magnetic or Coriolis force, providing the two tracks handle exactly equal and opposite momentum transfer. But each individual track will suffer large Coriolis force, causing the two tracks to bang against each other or pull apart or even worse shear away causing a strong torque on the whole system. Thus the two tracks must be carefully braced against each other to prevent both banging and pulling away, and must be oriented so as to minimize shear/torque. ------------------------------ Date: 20 Nov 83 2207 PST From: Rod Brooks Subject: Pravda report on cosmonauts To: space@MIT-MC n507 2201 20 Nov 83 BC-SPACE-11-21 EDITORS: The following is from the London Telegraph and is for use only in the United States and Canada. By Nigel Wade Daily Telegraph, London (Independent Press Service) MOSCOW - The Soyuz space capsule that will soon return two cosmonauts to earth from the Salyut 7 orbital station has not exhausted any of its resources, Pravda said Sunday. Some Western space experts have suggested that the batteries and other fuel resources of the Soyuz may be running dangerously low. A launching pad accident in October prevented three other cosmonauts visiting Salyut 7. They were to have returned in the Soyuz, leaving a fresh Soyuz capsule attached to the space station. The failure of that mission means the orbiting cosmonauts, Alexander Alexandrov and Vladimir Lyakhov, will use for their return the same capsule in which they arrived at the space station June 28. A spokesman for the Soviet Academy of Sciences has denied there is anything wrong with the capsule and Pravda made a special point of rejecting such speculation again Sunday. It quoted Valery Ryumin, a former cosmonaut and now mission control chief, as saying, ''All systems of the capsule were and are in good technical condition or, in other words, they have not exhausted their resources.'' No return date has been announced but the cosmonauts are already busy mothballing the space station to await its next occupants. While in orbit, they have fitted two extra solar batteries to Salyut 7. Soviet reports emphasized that this work had been planned from the beginning of the mission and was not a response to any unforeseen problem. END nyt-11-21-83 0056est *************** ------------------------------ Date: 18 Nov 83 22:44:46-PST (Fri) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: decvax!wivax!linus!philabs!seismo!rlgvax!cvl!umcp-cs!speaker @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: ABM WEAPONS 3takes In-Reply-To: Article <13399@sri-arpa.UUCP>, <148@dual.UUCP>, <1108@pur-phy.UUCP> <3336@utzoo.UUCP> Something the unwashed masses don't seem to understand is why we don't have ABMs and why they were abolished. Anti-ballistic missles seem like a great idea don't they? Purely defensive weapons used to protect the country from a first strike rather than initiate a nuclear exchange (actually Moscow still has some). Simple, huh? Turns out, however, that with ABMs there's more of a likelyhood of a world leader saying to himself, "Well, I'm protected by MY ABMs so I'll try to cream my opponent with a first strike." Without ABMs everyone lives under the threat of anhialation... and supposedly with this arrangment no one will attempt to start a nuclear war. In other words, we give everyone very very sharp swords and no shields. But then there's this talk of a winnable nuclear war... -- - Speaker-To-Stuffed-Animals speaker@umcp-cs speaker.umcp-cs@CSnet-Relay ------------------------------ Date: 15 Nov 83 20:46:56-PST (Tue) To: space@mit-mc From: sri-unix!decvax!duke!giles@ucf-cs.UUCP (Bruce Giles)@CCA Subject: re: IRAS recovery In-Reply-To: Article <3988@ukc.UUCP> I also heard that comment about how long a *full* analysis of the data will take, but all in all, I would prefer to have a warehouse full of unanalysed data spanning a few continous decades than just a few 1-2 year "bursts" fully analyzed. After all, in a few hundred years (or sooner) we may *desperately* need good base-line astronomical data which is just "interesting" today. One good example is the sun's output: is it really 4% variable (source unknown); is it pulsating because it switches between thermonuclear and gravitational collapse for its power (neutrino paradox), .... As I said, these are just matters of curiousity for a few scientist now; but if we are ever at the point where we will have to consider macro- engineering the earth itself (such as if the antartic icecap starts to slid into the ocean), we will need then to ensure we do not choose the worst of two evils. (re: example -- macroengineering the earth so that the mean temperature drops by 4 degrees C, then discovering that it was only a solar "burb" as we enter a severe iceage aggravated by the macroengineering.) Of course, this implies long-term planning; something definitely lacking in the last few administrations. (Proof: look at the Federal Deficit.) Unfortunately, if IRAS is in polar orbit I can't see any way to save it either. Also, your subject heading is definitely less ambiguous. I did not realize how ambiguous mine was until after submission. Sorry for any severe shocks it may have caused. Bruce Giles decvax!ucf-cs!giles (UUCP) UCF, Dept of Math, Orlando Fl 32816 (Snail) ------------------------------ Date: 14 Nov 83 14:30:27-PST (Mon) To: space@mit-mc From: sri-unix!decvax!duke!giles@ucf-cs.UUCP (Bruce Giles)@CCA Subject: Re: CAN ANYONE TELL ME HOW TO GO ABOUT GETTING TICKETS In-Reply-To: Article <404@psuvm.UUCP> For non-press passes to KSC for a launch, contact: NASA Public Affairs PA-VIC John F. Kennedy Space Center Kennedy Soace Center, Fl 32899 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Warning for launches: For STS-1, it took me 5 hours to travel as any miles the day of the launch. Things are better now, but still allow *PLENTY* of time. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- General information for travel to Central Florida: <1>: TRAFFIC: Our roads are designed for the *local* population load, not peak tourist loads. So expect major traffic jams. During a launch Titusville's population can more than *double* easily. Similiarly for Orlando, the metro population is ~750,000 normally, but can approach 1 million during the summer and Christmas, with most of the increase on I-4 heading toward Disney (==> 5 mile long traffic jams on the interstate). <2>: WEATHER: (a): Expect rain any time of the year. During the summer (April to September) expect severe afternoon thunderstorms. In the winter, expect rains at least 3 days out of the week. How- ever, the rain is normally over in an hour, and the sky clears up again. (b): From October until March, bring a good variety of clothing. The afternoon temperatures will generally be up into the 70's even if the morning low is near freezing. Because of the Gulf and Atlantic, the humidity is high year round, so the cold is *COLD*. A generally good idea is to layer your clothes from beach cloths underneath to long-sleeved shirts/ jeans and a heavy sweater. (c): From May to August wear loose light-colored cloths. Forget about anti-perspirsant(?), however; it is a lost cause. Sun-tan lotion is *highly* recommended for anybody from above the M-D line, especially for a day at KSC or Disney. <3>: AIRPORTS: The nearest *major* airport to KSC is Orlando Int'l, which is about 40 miles west. There are several smaller ones in Titusville itself, but there are far fewer flights into them. The major corridors from Orlando to Titusville are the Bee-line Exwy (toll road) and State Road 50 (4-lane divided except for a 10 mile 2-lane stretch). <4>: BEACHES: If you have a chance, visit the Canaveral National Sea- shore. It is on NASA property *just* north of complex 39. If you arrive a week early, the beach is inside of a security perimeter but you can still drive to it; and the shuttle on the pad is only a couple (I think <2) miles away -- you can get a *very* good view of it. From ~ T-3 days until touchdown the south end of the beach is completely restricted. However, the north end of the seashore is still open, and can be reached from New Smyrna Beach. (CNS is approximately 20 miles long). Anyway, it is also one of the few remaining natural beaches in the state. No condos. No hotels. No merchants. No driving on the beach. (Limited bathrooms). Hence, you can frequently find crabs, fish off-shore (both meanings),.... <5>: INSECTS: Yes, the mosquitos are a problem at KSC. More serious, at least during their peak seasons (which have slipped my mind) are LOVEBUGS. You have not lived until you drive into a swarm of lovebugs at 60 mph and your windshield, radiator, headlights, ... are *COVERED* with their remains. Not only can you not see through them, they are very good paint remover, *and* at the normal temps when they are around, dry to a nearly irremovable cement within a few hours. Why are they called lovebugs? Ask Hugh Heffner. I hope this is the information you needed. Sorry about the travelog style. Bruce Giles decvax!ucf-cs!giles (UUCP) UCF, Dept of Math, Orlando Fl 32816 (Snail) ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 22-Nov-83 0302 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #44 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts at MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 44 Today's Topics: Practical Books Re: uiucdcs.3825: Re: Space Solar Power - (nf) Re: Re: CAN ANYONE TELL ME HOW TO GO ABOUT GETTING TICKETS Space PR (long message) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 21 Nov 83 00:48 EST From: Charles Weems Return-Path: Subject: Practical Books To: space@mit-mc Add to the list of books that give practical information on astronomical computations: Title: Celestial Basic Author: Eric Burgess Publisher: Sybex Inc., Berkely CA Abstract: A collection of Apple BASIC programs for astronomy. These include time and date conversions, transits and elongations of Polaris, RA and Dec of Moon and planets, lunar phases and eclipses, rising, setting and transit times of sun, moon and planets, positions of Galilean satellites of Jupiter, skymaps of constellations and planets, dates and radiants of annual meteor showers, and photo exposure calculations for the planets. A note on the reference "Low-Precision Formulae for Planetary Positions, The Astrophysical Journal Supplement Series, 41:391-411, 1979 November" that was mentioned in a recent note: These computations are not simple to implement on most microcomputers. A 32 bit integer word (minimum integer precision) is required. These are excellent formulae and I've had little trouble implementing them on a Cyber 175 -- on the other hand, my 16 bit micro does not handle them well at all. Unless you like writing extended precision arithmetic packages, I would recommend the algorithms from the above book for use on micros. chip weems ------------------------------ Date: 15 Nov 83 10:00:46-PST (Tue) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: decvax!duke!phs!jtb @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: uiucdcs.3825: Re: Space Solar Power - (nf) In reply to your question about the reflection of heat: All electro-magnetic radiation carries energy we call infra-red light "heat" because we can feel the heat when it strikes our skin but we can't see it. Actually on a per photon basis visible light has more energy than infra-red. The energy traping which occurs in a room with a window or a planet with an atmosphere occurs because some of the sun's light is absorbed and the energy is re radiated as long wave infra-red if the glass or atmos- phere is not transparent to this infra-red the energy will be traped. That fraction of the light which is reflected however will pass out of the window or atmosphere as easily as it came in. Since most of the sun's energy is in visible light or near(short wave)-infra red the visual reflectance of a surface is critical in determing how much energy it will absorb. Jose Torre-Bueno decvax!duke!phs!jtb ------------------------------ Date: 15 Nov 83 21:23:21-PST (Tue) To: space@mit-mc From: sri-unix!decvax!duke!giles@ucf-cs.UUCP (Bruce Giles)@CCA Subject: Re: Re: CAN ANYONE TELL ME HOW TO GO ABOUT GETTING TICKETS I meant to mention this in the other article, but it was missed somehow: <1>: NASA recommends you allow at least 4 months to obtain passes to a launch. Thus, the next launch you could get passes to would be in March, if not later. <2>: Although no widely known (as far as I know), the SRB/Sound Suppression System forms a *LOT* of acid rain. I have heard stories of plants having holes in all of their leaves up to 1/2 mile away, the gantry being severely corroded, .... So -- if you have a pass it would be a good idea to take along some protective clothing just in case. A list follows: (a): Windbreaker -- to protect your clothes. (b): Hat -- to protect your head, face. (c): Decongestant/antihistamine -- in case you inhale any of the vapors, they are very irritating. (d): Hankerchief/face mask -- to protect your lungs. (e): Baking soda solution -- to protect the paint on your car in case the cloud is unusually heavy. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- sidenote: According to one of my professors, (who was already doing some work in air studies at KSC) when the engines ignited for the first launch, they made a loud sound. Big deal. Except there was a large concrete slab under the shuttle. Hence, almost immediately after ignition, **WWHHAAMM** the shuttle is hit by the echo of its engines. Appearently the only damage was a bent rod in the nose of Columbia, but it was (about 2 months after the flight) considered the single most dangerous point during ascent. If this was related to the shuttle *walking* across the pad (also documented both on film and in pad damage), I don't know. The solution was to dump tons of water between the engines and the concrete slab right after ignition, and it seems to work. I think it has something to do with con- converting the acoustical energy into mechanical energy by splitting the water drops into water mist. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Bruce Giles decvax!ucf-cs!giles (UUCP) UCF, Dept of Math, Orlando Fl 32816 (Snail) ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 21 Nov 83 09:58 PST From: SWigdor.es@PARC-MAXC.ARPA Subject: Space PR (long message) To: Space@MIT-MC.ARPA Reply-To: SWigdor.ES@PARC-MAXC.ARPA A interesting letter to the editor from James Arnold, the director of CalSpace, that appeared in the November 18th edition of the LA Times. Interesting to see how we who belive in space sell the idea to the rest of the taxpayers in this country. Apologies to anybody who gets the Times and to Professor Arnold since this was reproduced without premission. Sheldon Wigdor ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ SPACE IS OUT THERE WAITING FOR US TO TRY NEW IDEAS By James R. Arnold We have just been celebrating the 25th anniversary of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, and ther is a lot to celebrate. Space exploration has been one of this country's moust succesful enterprisies. Still, taxpayers these days are in amood to question all forms of public spending. In real dollars, NASA's budget is now about one-third the size that it was in the glory days of the first Apollo moon landing in 1969. It is appropriate, all the same, to question whether some of NASA's activities are ready to be transferred private industry. The public may not be aware of how close we came a few years ago to turning off the U.S. planetary-exploration program altogether. For several years the Galileo mission to Jupiter was the only one being prepared for launching, and its launch date had a nasty habit of being delayed one year each year. Planerary scientists such as myself were forced to think very hard about the costs of our program. We are now seeing the results. NASA's Solar System Exploration Committee, of which I am a member, has just issued its report. It identifies major possible savings in at least three areas. First, ther now exist assembly lines for some satellites that are needed in large numbers, such as for weather or communications needs in Earth orbit. It will be much less expensive to buy one of these, put instruments on it and send it to Mars or the moon, for example, than to build a new, custom tailored spacecraft for each mission. Second, the big "mission control" teams of the past can be replaced by much smaller teams backed by computers. Finally, we scientists can learn to simplify our needs and procedures, again aided by computers. There are intial signs that this approach will be accepted by the White House and Congress, and that we may be back on track. But a much larger issue, at least in dollar terms, concerns NASA's plan for a space station-or, as President Reagan puts it, a "permanent human presence in space." Most of NASA's budget for the last 10 years has gone to pay for the space shuttle. The shuttle is basically a reusable spaceplane that carry people and machines into low Earth orbit-thus far, for periods of six days or less. A space station would provide a focal point for space activities in the 1990s and beyond, and NASA now hopes to start this big new project in the next fiscal year. Is this a good idea? Some space scientists are doubtful. They have seen the space shuttle go over budget in the '70s, threatening, delaying or cutting out important scientific projects that the shuttle intended to serve. They fear that it might happen again. At the California Space Institute we have been working with NASA's space- station task force to find low-cost paths to a space station that really helps scientists, industry and the public to benefit from the promise of space. For example, the object in the center of the shuttle system when it is launched is the shuttle external tank. This carries the fuel for the main engines. On each flight one of these goes nearly into orbit (as it must to carry the fuel), and is then ditched in a carefully selected area of the Indian Ocean. Each is the size of a 10 to 15 story building and costs more than $10 million. At the institute, and at several major aerospace companies, scientists and engineers are studying the best ways to use these giant pieces of hardware to build, expand or upgrade space stations as space factories, habitats and fuel- storage depots-among other uses. They show great promise, and in the next decade NASA will buy hundreds of them. Given large and massive facilities in orbit, there are new methods of propulsion that have great promise for moving things around in low Earth orbit. The most faccinating of these is the use of (very) long ropes, called tethers, in the gravity field of Earth. Briefly, whar can be done is to take energy and momentum from an object that needs less and give it to one thats needs more. For example, the astronauts must come home at the end of a shuttle mission, which means firing retro-rockets to slow down. With tethers the energy could instead be given to the space station to boost it to a higher orbit. The rocket fuel that is saved could be kept in station tanks to sell to another customer. There are other new ideas in the wings that may be even more promising. Indeed, in our view the main use of a well designed space station will be to learn how to do major work and test new ideas in space quickly and cheaply. At present a new space project may take 10 years from the first discussion to completion. On that schedule even a genius can solve only a few problems in a lifetime. In a space station the occupants would have spare time to try things and fool around. That's how people really learn, and that's exciting. We can make access to space possible for many more people with many different skills. The full power of new technology that we've developed here on Earth can be used out there. These are the challenges of space in the next 10 years. We live on the surface of a small, crowded planet. Space is everywhere else; its out there waiting for us. James R. Arnold is professor of chemistry and director of the California Space Institute at UCSD ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 23-Nov-83 0303 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #45 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts at MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 45 Today's Topics: Re: re: IRAS recovery - (nf) Re: Re: Apollo Program (Semi-Trivia) Questio - (nf) X-ray lasers More TDRS Troubles Re: uiucdcs.3825: Re: Space Solar Power - (nf) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 20 Nov 83 15:49:27-PST (Sun) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: pur-ee!uiucdcs!uiuccsb!krueger @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: re: IRAS recovery - (nf) And while more computer resources are being obtained, let's not forget to acquire more astronomers to interpret what the computers spit out. To me, "analysis of the data" would not be complete without a thorough set of hypotheses to explain the data. Perhaps this is what is going to take 10 years, and it might be best not to rush it, for the capabilities of the next IRAS-like endeavor might be enhanced by understanding as much as possible the data currently available. J.W.Krueger ...!ihnp4!uiucdcs!krueger at the U of IL, CS Dept (Not an astronomer, just interested) ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 22 Nov 83 14:43 EST From: Sewhuk.HENR@PARC-MAXC.ARPA Subject: Re: Re: Apollo Program (Semi-Trivia) Questio - (nf) To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC.ARPA The story I heard about the landing computer is that is was overloaded. A ranging radar was left on during the landing that has nothing to do with landing, this caused a stream of interrupts that caused a non-trivial amount of the processors time to be wasted in servicing this unwanted data. The computer was minutes behind "real" time about the time he took manual control. A fix was to include a "shut off the extra radar" instruction in pre-landing check list so the machine could play "lunar lander" OK. If you listen to the some of the landing you will here a reference to a ""..blah blah alarm" went off. That is the point they noticed what was wrong but it was too late for the computer to catch up, so he went in on manual. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 22 Nov 1983 19:58 MST From: Kevin Kenny Subject: X-ray lasers Reply-To: Kenny.OSNI%PCO-Multics@CISL-SERVICE-MULTICS.ARPA To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC.ARPA Message-ID: <831123025846.634745@HIS-PHOENIX-MULTICS.ARPA> Having seen several transactions regarding the development of space-based X-ray lasers, I've got a few questions of the group. The description of the device mentions that the driver is a megaton-size nuclear device. Is the altitude at which the device is deployed sufficient to obviate EMP effects? How transparent is the atmosphere at X-ray wavelengths? Could the device be used against ground targets? What about aircraft at altitudes of, say, 10,000 meters? ------------------------------ Date: 21 Nov 83 13:30:42-PST (Mon) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: harpo!eagle!allegra!alice!alb @ Ucb-Vax Subject: More TDRS Troubles The second of two antennae on the TDRS-1 is in trouble, but NASA is going ahead with STS-9 as planned. The difficulties will force the astronauts and ground to communicate over one circuit instead of two. ------------------------------ Date: 23 November 1983 04:15 EST From: Robert Elton Maas Subject: Re: uiucdcs.3825: Re: Space Solar Power - (nf) To: decvax!duke!phs!jtb @ UCB-VAX cc: SPACE @ MIT-MC Date: 15 Nov 83 10:00:46-PST (Tue) From: decvax!duke!phs!jtb @ Ucb-Vax All electro-magnetic radiation carries energy we call infra-red light "heat" because we can feel the heat when it strikes our skin but we can't see it. This is a matter of terminology (as contrasted with fact), but I believe the accepted terminology is that only energy with a wavelength longer than red yet shorter than microwave is considered infra-red, despite the fact that all energy absorbed by the skin will warm it to some extent. Thus all electromagnetic radiation carries energy, but it isn't called infra-red unless it's in the correct wavelength band. For example, spectrally-pure light from a visible-light laser contains NO infra-red whatsoever (of course any practical laser emits some thermal radiation in all directions, some of which happens to be going in the same direction as the laser light, but the coherent light carries NO infra-red at all). Thus I think your statement is wrong/misleading. The rest of your explanation is reasonable, so let me offer a replacement for the erroneous part: All electromagnetic radiation contains energy, and when absorbed by an object causes it to get warmer. Warm objects then emit electromagnetic radiation of all wavelengths (not just the wavelength of the incoming energy that heated it in the first place), the so-called "black-body radiation". At Earth temperatures, most of the radiation given off is in the infra-red, and planetary atmospheres tend to block infra-red even if they allow light to come in, allowing the planet to get warm from the light but making it difficult to cool back off by emitting infra-red, causing the planet to be warmer than if it was exposed to space directly where it could both absorb light and emit infra-red freely. P.s. this blocking of infra-red radiation, causing the inside (the planet in this case) to get warmer, is called the "greenhouse effect" because the first practical use (other than the natural environment of the Earth and Venus etc.) was in botanical greenhouses, which can grow plants comfortably-warm inside even when it's unconfortably cold outside and there's no furnace or other heat source inside the greenhouse. ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 24-Nov-83 0302 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #46 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts at MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 46 Today's Topics: Re: ABM WEAPONS dying IRAS Re: SPACE Digest V4 #45 Cosmonauts return Summary of net.astro responses Any L-5ers Out There Cosmonauts A Bibliography of Mathematical Astronomy - Revisited ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 21 Nov 83 12:54:47-PST (Mon) To: space@mit-mc From: sri-unix!decvax!duke!giles@ucf-cs.UUCP (Bruce Giles)@CCA Subject: Re: ABM WEAPONS In-Reply-To: Article <13399@sri-arpa.UUCP>, <148@dual.UUCP>, <1108@pur-phy.UUCP> <3336@utzoo.UUCP>, <3925@umcp-cs.UUCP> [10 .. 9 .. 8 .. 7 .. 6 .. 5 .. 4 .. 3 .. 2 .. 1 .. ] GROW UP!!!! Anybody who seriously thinks about nuclear weapons for more than 5 nanoseconds will realize that our #1 concern is *NOT* Russia. Granted, they can inflict the greatest damage to us, but they know we can clobber them also. But, so long as it is the best interest of both the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. not to have a nuclear war, we will not have a nuclear war. The serious problem is if a lunatic and/or fanatic and/or power-crazy third-world politician gets a nuclear weapon. After all, can you see bombing Iran or Libya completely into the dark ages because a terrorist who *may* be associated with that country tried to bomb New York, London, Paris, or any other western (or eastern) city? (Granted, that may only take a single tactical warhead :-)). This is (fortunately) not a serious problem *yet*, but I remember reading somewhere that Quadafi was willing to pay megabucks for a nuclear warhead. (I think I saw that in Newsweek). While terrorists may be able to smuggle the bomb under the ABM system, there is still the problem of accidental launch. After all, accidents do happen. For example, remember the missile that blew up in its silo a few years ago, propelling the warhead a good distance away? Hopefully, the side which accidently launched a missile would (1) explode it (chemically, not nuclearily) at a safe attitude, and (2) immediately call the other side and let them know what was happening. However, I would feel a lot safer if I knew *each* side could destroy the missile if the self-destruct did not work, instead of taking out Hamberg or Kiev. Finally, I doubt that we will ever go to the extent (read: expense) of being able to knock out *all* incoming warheads in a *major* strike. However, I would fully support an ABM system capable of knocking out everything up to a moderate size attack, primarily because it would give us more breathing room in a crisis. After all, we would probabily start will small exchanges in the beginning of the crisis, exactly what this type of system is designed to quench. [If this continues we need to move to net.nuclear.flames.] Bruce Giles decvax!ucf-cs!giles (UUCP) UCF, Dept of Math, Orlando Fl 32816 (Snail) ------------------------------ Date: 23 Nov 83 1039 PDT From: Ron Goldman Subject: dying IRAS To: space@MIT-MC Date: 23 Nov 83 1810 PST From: Ross Finlayson Subject: IRAS 'dead' To: space@MIT-MC a051 0327 23 Nov 83 PM-Satellite, Bjt,420 Orbiting Telescope Dying of the Heat By HARRY F. ROSENTHAL Associated Press Writer WASHINGTON (AP) - NASA has announced the imminent, untimely death of an orbiting telescope that is rewriting astronomy books. Age, 10 months. Cause of death: At 448 degrees below zero, it's overheating. The focal plane on the Infrared Astronomical Satellite telescope has to be cooled to a temperature of 2.5 degrees above absolute zero - minus 455 degrees Fahrenheit. On Monday night the superfluid helium used for cooling ran out and the focal plane - the point where the image is in focus - began warming at the rate of four-tenths of one degree an hour. Since its launch last January, the Infrared Astronomical Satellite has: -Produced direct evidence that ours is not the only solar system. -Discovered five comets and recorded more than 200,000 objects in the heavens. -Found three giant rings of dust in the solar system, huge dust shells around the star Betelgeuse and a mysterious object - possibly an asteroid or a dead comet - that passes nearer to the sun than any planet or known asteroid. -Successfully surveyed 95 percent of the sky, found a ring of solid material around the star Vega, bands of dust around the sun between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter, and taken a new look at our own galaxy, the Milky Way. -Returned more than 200 billion bits of data to Earth, allowing scientists see beyond the dust veils that normally obscure stars in formation or in their death throes. As it moved through a polar orbit, 563 miles high above Earth, with the telescope chilled properly, the telescope's infra-red detector recorded radiation from cold masses of gas in space. From Earth, such radiation is filtered out by the atmosphere and can't be measured. Useful scientific observations can continue until the temperature rises to minus 448 degrees, early next week. The satellite, known as IRAS, was launched Jan. 25 carrying 165 pounds of refrigerant. Before launch, engineers estimated the helium would last only seven months, but they revised their estimate after seeing how much was being used, predicting the satellite would operate into January 1984. However, the Rutherford-Appleton Laboratories at Didcot, England, which operates the IRAS tracking station, said IRAS depleted its supply at 8:30 p.m. EST Monday. ''Considering the uncertainties in the calibration estimates in the flow rate of helium usage, the achieved lifetime is within about 10 percent of predictions,'' NASA said. IRAS is a joint venture of the United States, the Netherlands and Great Britain. The United States contributed $150 million to the $200 million total cost. ap-ny-11-23 0625EST *************** ------------------------------ Date: 23 Nov 83 18:16:27 EST From: MCGRATH@RUTGERS.ARPA Subject: Re: SPACE Digest V4 #45 To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC.ARPA In-Reply-To: Message from "Ted Anderson " of 23 Nov 83 06:03:00 EST Please remove me from the SPACE mailing list - I am reading it at another site right now. I am probably on as JPM@SAIL, JPTM@an ITS site, or under this account name. Thanks. Jim ------- ------------------------------ Date: 23 Nov 83 1815 PST From: Ross Finlayson Subject: Cosmonauts return To: space@MIT-MC a246 1608 23 Nov 83 AM-Cosmonauts,390 Return Home Safely After Five Months in Space By ROXINNE ERVASTI Associated Press Writer MOSCOW (AP) - Two Soviet cosmonauts who were in space for five months returned to Earth safely Wednesday night and are ''are feeling well,'' the government said. The announcements by state-run television and the official news agency Tass did not specify when or where cosmonauts Vladimir Lyakhov and Alexander Alexandrov, both 42, brought down their Soyuz T-9 spacecraft. But Tass said earlier that Soviet trackers expected the cosmonauts to land at about 11 p.m. - 3 p.m. EST. A television news commentator about to read an item at 11 p.m. picked up a telephone and then said he just had been informed of the touchdown. In a simultaneous announcement, Tass said the spacecraft had landed and ''the cosmonauts are feeling well.'' The touchdown site was presumed to be in Kazakhstan near the Baikonur space center, where other Soviet space ships have made soft landings. The cosmonauts began their mission June 27 and docked with the orbiting Salyut 7 space station the next day. Lyakhov was mission commander and Alexandrov was on his first mission. Western intelligence sources have said the Soyuz T-9 that carried the cosmonauts was approaching a time when their return aboard it would be risky because of weakening batteries and fuel evaporation. There had been reports in the West that a fuel leak aboard the space station had limited its maneuverability. The British Broadcasting Corp. said it appeared the cosmonauts were ''drifting in space,'' but Soviet space officials denied this. In September, Soviet sources said a launching pad explosion aborted another Soyuz mission that presumably would have docked with the Salyut 7. The three cosmonauts aboard were said to have been slightly injured. Following past Soviet space practices, those three cosmonauts would have returned to Earth in the Soyuz T-9 used by Alexandrov and Lyakhov, who would have used the fresher T-10 for their return later. The world space endurance record was set last year by cosmonauts Anatoly Berezovoy and Valentin Lebedev, whose 211-day mission ended Dec. 10. Alexandrov and Lyakhov conducted numerous experiments in medicine, biology and other areas, the Soviet press has said. Twice they performed space walks, spending about six hours outside the Salyut station setting up solar batteries. ap-ny-11-23 1906EST ********** ------------------------------ Date: 21 Nov 83 17:32:05-PST (Mon) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: harpo!eagle!mhuxl!ulysses!princeton!astrovax!wls @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Summary of net.astro responses About a week ago I proposed a new group, net.astro, to discuss topics in and related to astronomy. The configuration I favored was net.astro.wizards for expert discussion of ideas and results, net.astro for non-expert discussion, with possibly a net.astro.amateur if amateur astronomers wanted their own group. I still prefer this configuration but now would prefer to call the expert group net.astro.expert because 1) it sounds a bit less frivolous 2) the name is one character shorter 3) the word expert seems somewhat more likely than wizards to be understood by someone not familiar with the jargon of the net. Reasons 1) and 2) seem stronger to me than 3). I have not yet seen any response, either posted or mailed that was opposed to the idea of an astronomy newsgroup of some sort. However there is a cacophony of different ideas about configuration and names. I count 6 posted responses and 6 Emailed responses in favor of the establishment of an astronomy newsgroup. The following is a summary of responses I've received by electronic mail. I will assume that everyone has seen the posted responses. Doug Tody (kpno!tody) writes: > ... I have talked about setting up an > electronic network among the astronomy centers in the past but never got > anywhere. Your idea seems like a good way to do it, since there are already > a significant number of sites on the unix network. Perhaps even some of the > vms sites could join, given the prevalence of unix emulators. I hear that > Eunice provides uucp. Space tel has the toronto emulator (I forget the name); > I do not know if it provides uucp, but it probably does. > NRAO has unix running on one of their machines. ....... > I confess that I do not read the news myself, cause I don't have time to > wade through all the garbage. I would do it, though, if your scheme succeeded > in keeping the volume to a reasonable and worthwhile level. Best of luck. > Doug. Roger Noe (ihlts!noe) writes: > ... I favor keeping net.space (which is about MUCH more than the manned space > program), moving net.columbia to net.space.prog or net.space.expl > (exploration) and creating net.space.astro. Of course, the names may be > different. Gordon Watson (hou5h!gsw) writes: > Here is a YES for net.astro.*. I am an amateur astronomer - and > net.astro.amateur would be wonderful. net.astro.wizards would be a very > useful service. I'm not so sure there are that many astronomers on the net - > maybe I would have expected more astronomical articles in net.space. Here is > my vote anyway. inuxc!fred writes: > ... I would certainly be interested in net.astro, being a semi-serious > amateur I read everything I can get my hands on. It would be great to > read what the "professionals" have to say to each other on the > lastest findings in Astronomy. I would also estimate that there are > about 6 people here at AT&T CP Indianapolis that feel the same way I do. And last from ukc!dgd: > One vote for net.astro !! -- Bill Sebok Princeton Univ. Astrophysics {allegra,akgua,burl,cbosgd,decvax,ihnp4,kpno,princeton}!astrovax!wls ------------------------------ Date: 21 Nov 83 17:07:25-PST (Mon) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: harpo!floyd!vax135!cornell!uw-beaver!ssc-vax!eder @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Any L-5ers Out There . 21 November 1983 I would like to find out if there are other members of the L-5 Society, or for that matter any other space activist organizations, on the net. I've been asked by Joe Hopkins, L-5's New Chapters Coordinator, to find out if there are enough folks out there to create an electronic chapter. If there is significant interest, I would like to propose a new topic: net.space.L5, or for brevity net.L5. There is already one electronic chapter, on The Source. Comments either to me or to net.space. Thanks. Dani Eder Boeing Aerospace ssc-vax!eder ------------------------------ Date: 24 Nov 83 0140 PST From: Rod Brooks Subject: Cosmonauts To: space@MIT-MC a035 0115 24 Nov 83 PM-Cosmonauts,450 Laserphoto NY58 MOSCOW (AP) - The Soviet Union said today the 150-day space mission by two cosmonauts has opened new prospects for long term missions aboard orbiting space stations. The official news agency Tass said cosmonauts Vladimir Lyakhov and Alexander Alexandrov, aboard their Soyuz T-9, made a soft landing Wednesday night in Soviet Central Asia and were ''feeling well.'' The site was reported to be about 100 miles east of Dzhezkazgan, a city in the republic of Kazakhstan where most soft landings are made. Alexandrov received the title of Pilot-Cosmonaut of the Soviet Union, Hero of the Soviet Union and the Order of Lenin and Gold Star medal. It was his first space mission. Lyakhov, the mission commander, was also given the Order of Lenin and his second Gold Star medal. In 1979, Lyakhov and another cosmonaut completed a then-record space flight of 175 days. Tass said the cosmonauts carried out technical, medical and biological studies and experiments. It said there were two space walks totaling 5 hours and 45 minutes, during which solar batteries were installed on the orbiting Salyut 7 space lab. ''That unique experiment is opening up fresh prospects for the development of manned orbital complexes intended for prolonged service and for raising their efficiency,'' said Tass. Longterm manned orbiting space complexes, which could be used as docking stations for space craft, are a main goal of the Soviet space program. ''A significant quantity of technical experiments was carried out to practice the methods of guiding orbital complexes,'' Tass said. ''New instruments and equipment for future space vehicles were tested.'' Tass said experiments also focused on growing crystals and plants and ''pure protein preparation.'' The cosmonauts, both 42, began their mission June 27 and docked with the orbiting Salyut 7 space station the next day. Western intelligence sources have said the Soyuz T-9 that carried the cosmonauts was approaching a time when their return aboard it would be risky. The intelligence sources cited weakening batteries and fuel evaporation as the major problems. In September, according to Soviet sources, a launching pad explosion aborted another Soyuz mission that presumably would have docked with the Salyut 7. According to past Soviet space practices, the three cosmonauts whose mission was aborted would have returned to earth in the Soyuz T-9 used by Alexandrov and Lyakhov. The more recently arrived space ship would have been used later for the pair's return. The Soyuz T-9 docking with the Salyut was the second attempted this year. On April 21, three Soviet cosmonauts were returned to earth after an unsuccessful docking attempt. ap-ny-11-24 0413EST *************** ------------------------------ Date: 22 Nov 83 12:48:06-PST (Tue) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: ihnp4!ihuxj!rjh @ Ucb-Vax Subject: A Bibliography of Mathematical Astronomy - Revisited (-) Practical Astronomy with your calculator Author: Peter Duffett-Smith Publisher: Cambridge University Press @ London, New York, Syndey, et al. Published: 1981 Comments: Contains good explainations easily worked on a calculator. Mathematical Astronomy with a Pocket Calculator Author: Aubrey Jones FRAS Published: 1978 Publisher: David & Charles @ Newton Abbot and London Comments: Contains many programs for HP 67 or HP 41 calculators. Astronomical Formulae for Calculators Author: Jean Meeus, Vereniging voor Sterrenkunde Belgium Publisher: Willman-Bell, Inc., P.O. Box 3125, Richmond, VA 23235, USA (804) 320-7016 Published: 1982 Comments: The title is a misnomer unless you consider a HP-85 a calculator. Formulae are presented not programs. If you are interested in astronomy, you ought to get this publisher's catalog. Astronomical Tables of the Sun, Moon, and Planets Author: Jean Meeus, Vereniging voor Sterrenkunde Belgium Publisher: Willman-Bell, Inc., P.O. Box 3125, Richmond, VA 23235, USA (804) 320-7016 Published: 1983 Comments: This book is 'companion volume' to the previous book giving computed results. Low-Precision Formulae for Planetary Positions in 'The Astrophysical Journal' Author: T.C. Van Flandern and K . F Pulkkinen Publisher: The American Astronomical Society by University of Chicago Press 5801 S. Ellis Avenue, Chicago, IL 60637, USA Published: November 1979 ess Comments: A how-to-compute 'cookbook'. 'This paper gives low-precision (1') formulae for geocentric and heliocentric positions of the Sun, Moon, and planets, which are valid for any epoch within 300 years of the present.' Textbook on Spherical Astronomy Author: W. M. Smart, revised by R. M. Green Publisher: Cambridge University Press (see above) Published: 1980 (1st ed. 1931) Comments: Textbook. Good for a beginner. College freshman math. Considered a classic reference. Sometimes used in a graduate level course. Orbital Motion Author: A. E. Roy Publisher: Halsted Press John Wiley & Sons @ New York, Chichester, Brisbane, et al. Published: 1980 (1st ed. 1931) Comments: Advanced textbook. Starts out at a low enough level that an advanced undergraduate can follow it. Spherical Astronomy Author: Edgar W. Woolard and Gerald M. Clemence Publisher: Academic Press @ New York, San Franciso, London, Syndey et al. Published: 1966 Comments: Advanced reference. Very complete discussions. Methods of Celestial Mechanics Author: Dirk Brouwer and Gerald M. Clemence Publisher: Academic Press @ New York, San Franciso, London, Syndey et al. Published: 1961 Comments: Advanced reference. Very complete discussions. Introduction to Orbital Mechanics Author: Franz T. Geyling and H. Robert Westerman Publisher: Addison-Wesley @ Reading MA, Menlo Park CA, London et al. . Published: 1971 Comments: Advanced reference. Includes discussions of spheriod, light pressure and magnetic field effects on Earth satellites. This book is currently out of print. Theory of the Motion of the Heavenly Bodies Moving about the Sun in Conic Sections Latin title: Theoria Motus Corporum Coelestium in Sectionibus Conicis Solem Ambientium Auctore Author: Karl Friedrich Gauss, translated by Charles Henry Davis Publisher: Dover Publications, Inc. @ New York Published: 1963 (reprint of Little, Brown & Co. edition of 1857) Comments: Reference book. Shows how to compute orbits from observations. Considered a classic reference. It is somewhat hard to follow. Computational Spherical Astronomy Author: Laurence G. Taff Publisher: John Wiley & Sons @ New York, Chichester, Brisbane, et al. Published: 1981 Comments: Textbook. Good for a beginner. College freshman math. Intended for engineers and other such users. Almanac for Computers (numbered by year) Publisher: Nautical Almanac Office, United States Naval Observatory, Washington, DC 20390 Published: yearly Comments: Very high precision Chebyshev short term (e.g. 1 month) formulae suitable for hand calculator (programability is nice but not really necessary). American Practical Navigator (2 vols) Author: originally Nathaniel Bowditch, LL.D. 1773-1838 Publisher: (United States) Defense Mapping Agency Hydrographic Center Published: 1977 (1st Vol) 1975 (2nd Vol) Comments: Textbook. Very good for a beginner. Elementary school math. Intended for seaman with about 8th grade education. Teachs the why's, how's and needed mathematics to work astronomical problems associated with navigation. The second volume contains the necessary tables. The Astronomical Almanac (numbered by year) Publisher: Nautical Almanac Office, United States Naval Observatory, Washington, DC 20390 & Her Majesty's Nautical Almanac Office, Royal Greenwich Observatory, East Sussex, BN27 1RP, England Published: yearly Comments: Reference tables with some text. Can be ordered from: 1. Superintendent of Documents, US Government Printing Office, Washington, DC 20402 2. Her Majesty's Stationery Office, P.O. Box 569, London SE1 9NH, England Explanatory Supplement to the Astronomical Ephemeris and the American Ephemeris and Nautical Almanac Publisher: Nautical Almanac Office, United States Naval Observatory, Washington, DC 20390 & Her Majesty's Nautical Almanac Office, Royal Greenwich Observatory, East Sussex, BN27 1RP, England Published: 1961 Comments: Reference. Title describes relationship to The Astronomical Almanac described above. Can be ordered from: 1. Pendragon, 2595 E. Bayshore Road, Palo Alto, CA 94303, USA 2. Her Majesty's Stationery Office, P.O. Box 569, London SE1 9NH, England ------ The following books are not directly concerned with ------ Mathematical Astronomy; but they do contain related material. Algorithms for RPN Calculators Author: John A. Ball Publisher: John Wiley & Sons @ New York, Chichester, Brisbane, et al. Published: 1978 Comments: Primarily a book showing how to write good tight algorithms for RPN calculators. It does contain several algorithms related to geodesy and astronomy. The Christian Calendar and the Gregorian Reform Author: Peter Archer, S.J. Publisher: Fordham University Press @ New York Published: 1941 Comments: Primarily a study of the Christian luni-solar calendar and of its Geogorian correction. This is the most complete discussion of the Christian calendar that I have able to find in English. The Cyclopedia of Religion and Ethics (I do not have with me a complete reference to this work.) Comments: This cyclopedia a number of detailed descriptions of the various religious calendars. There are many other good reference books. Randolph J. Herber, Amdahl Systems Engineer, ..!ihnp4!ihuxj!rjh, c/o IH 1C220, AT&T Bell Labs, Naperville, IL 60566, (312) 979-6554 or AT&T Cornet 8-367-6554, or Amdahl Corp., Suite 250, 6400 Shafer, Rosemont, IL 60018, (312) 692-7520 ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 25-Nov-83 0303 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #47 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts at MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 47 Today's Topics: STS-9 ham phone numbers Estimated STS-9 orbit elements ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thursday, 24 November 1983 16:26:16 EST From: Howard.Gayle@CMU-CS-G To: Space@MIT-MC Subject: STS-9 ham phone numbers Message-ID: <1983.11.24.21.20.37.Howard.Gayle@CMU-CS-G> According to Radio Nederland, Bearcat will give times and frequencies of amateur transmissions from STS-9 on 800-722-6637. The number will open after launch. The same information will be available on 213-465-1500, which should be open now. ------------------------------ Date: 22 Nov 83 19:06:16-PST (Tue) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: harpo!eagle!allegra!karn @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Estimated STS-9 orbit elements Satellite: sts-9 Catalog number: 0 Epoch time: 83335.58211000 Thu Dec 1 13:58:14.304 1983 UTC Element set: est Inclination: 57.0154 deg RA of node: 193.1900 deg Eccentricity: 0.0007630 Arg of perigee: 355.5104 deg Mean anomaly: 4.0830 deg Mean motion: 16.08700000 rev/day Decay rate: 0.0227 rev/day^2 Epoch rev: 0 Semi major axis: 6628.185 km Anom period: 89.513272 min Apogee: 255.190 km Perigee: 245.075 km ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 26-Nov-83 0302 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #48 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts at MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 48 Today's Topics: Re: ABM WEAPONS Re: ion pumps re:ABMs ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 22 Nov 83 15:05:11-PST (Tue) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: ihnp4!astrovax!mwe @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: ABM WEAPONS In-Reply-To: Article <13399@sri-arpa.UUCP>, <148@dual.UUCP>, <1108@pur-phy.UUCP> <3336@utzoo.UUCP>, <3925@umcp-cs.UUCP>, <1085@ucf-cs.UU Relay-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site decvax.UUCP Message-ID: <140@astrovax.UUCP> Date: Tue, 22-Nov-83 15:05:11 EST Lines: 23 Relay-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site mhuxl.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site astrovax.UUCP Message-ID: <140@astrovax.UUCP> Date: Tue, 22-Nov-83 15:05:11 EST CP> Organization: Princeton Univ. Astrophysics Lines: 14 I must strongly disagree with one point in Bruce Giles article. An ABM system capable of taking out moderate strikes is exactly what we don't need. Of course, any defensive system is destabalizing to the current balance of terror, but from the Russian point of view, what use could a defense against moderate strikes be put to? Why, only to shoot down a second strike of course, and they would be very nervous (probably to the point of being forced to the infamous "launch on warning"). How would you feel if you found out that the Soviets were deploying a defense that wasn't capable of stopping an all out strike by the US, but could shoot down about the number of missiles we would have left after a first strike by them? -- Web Ewell Princeton Univ. Astrophysics {allegra,akgua,burl,cbosgd,decvax,ihnp4,kpno,princeton}!astrovax!mwe ------------------------------ Date: 22 Nov 83 20:24:07-PST (Tue) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: decvax!genrad!security!linus!utzoo!henry @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: ion pumps In-Reply-To: Article <3758@duke.UUCP> Interplanetary gas is so thin that current technology can't do anything useful with it, I'm afraid. -- Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology {allegra,ihnp4,linus,decvax}!utzoo!henry ------------------------------ Date: 23 Nov 83 11:18:53-PST (Wed) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: ihnp4!ihu1e!gps @ Ucb-Vax Subject: re:ABMs Some of the statements made by Bruce Giles may be misleading. I don't know about theirs, but our missiles have no self destruct capabilities. The fact is, when they leave the hole there is no way of stopping them so one had better be certain of what is going on. A former TITAN II crew member (373 SMS) Greg Stephens ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 27-Nov-83 0303 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #49 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts at MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 49 Today's Topics: Re: 1984 SPace shuttle schedule - (nf) rocket belt NASA Astronaut Candidate program wants YOU (maybe) Re: ssc-vax.634: Any L-5ers Out There Husband and Wife teams in space Will Weather Delay Launch? - (nf) Will Weather Delay Launch? - (nf) Re:re:ABMs Re: Greenhouse effect ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 23 Nov 83 15:38:29-PST (Wed) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: hplabs!hao!seismo!philabs!cmcl2!kenner @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: 1984 SPace shuttle schedule - (nf) #R:sri-arpa:-1379100:cmcl2:2300001:000:192 cmcl2!kenner Nov 23 18:38:00 1983 Does anybody know the actual schedule of all the missions for 1984? I am mostly interested in the dates but if you have approximate launch times and mission durations, I would appreciate it. ------------------------------ Date: 22 Nov 83 19:07:33-PST (Tue) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: decvax!tektronix!tekgds!tekecs!orca!warner @ Ucb-Vax Subject: rocket belt Having just read the article which mentioned the rocket belt and untethered flight, I wondered about what sort of backup recovery system there could be. The first thing that came to my mind was to give the astronaut a spring loaded gun that would shoot a small permenent magnet on a thin wire. The next scheme I thought of would to be to have two electro magnets, one on the shuttle and one on the astronaut. If the rocket belt failed then the magnets could be turned on. It's up to the engineers to figure out how strong a field would be necessary to provide a recovery within the lifetime of the life support system. What's the real backup system? Ken Warner ...tektronix!warner ------------------------------ Date: 30 Nov 83 1:37:14-EST (Wed) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: sun!gnu @ Ucb-Vax Subject: NASA Astronaut Candidate program wants YOU (maybe) The following message was posted to the Stanford public bulletin board. To apply, contact NASA, or the Stanford office below -- not me! ------- From: Elyse Krupnick Subject: Astronaut Program Newsgroups: su.bboard The National Aeronautics & Space Administration office in Washinton, D.C., has asked Stanford's assistance in disseminating informationa nd application forms for NASA's Astronaut Candidate program. The program in open to U.S. citizens (only) with a Bachelor's degree and preferable graduate work in the fields of Engineering, Biological or Physical Science or Mathematics. NASA is particularly interested in recruiting qualified minority applApplicants are being sought both for Mission Specialist and Pilot (6 new candidates for each; 12 individuals are expected to be added to the roster). Further information and application forms are available in the Graduate Awards Office, Graduate Administration Building 590, Rm. 209. all applications must be postmarked by Dec. 1, 1983. If you know of individuals who would qualify who might be interested in applying, please inform th------- ------------------------------ Date: 25 Nov 83 9:43:49-PST (Fri) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: decvax!duke!phs!jtb @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: ssc-vax.634: Any L-5ers Out There I vote for a electronic chapter of L-5 I am also a member of the Space Studies Institute anyone else out there? I think it would be helpful if people would post the adresses and descriptions of the various space advocacy organizations. I will shortly post some info about SSI. Perhaps Dani Eder could describe L-5 for anyone who does not know what it is about. I would also like to learn somthing about CalSpace. Jose Torre-Bueno decvax!duke!phs!jtb ------------------------------ Date: 25 Nov 83 18:25:49-PST (Fri) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: decvax!watmath!bstempleton @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Husband and Wife teams in space In-Reply-To: Article <13791@sri-arpa.UUCP> I was not aware of the number of such teams. Will there soon be a mission where both go up together? If so, I am sure I need not detail the interesting things that are possible. Of course, they have to go up before the TDRS network provides round the clock telemetry. How long are the radio gaps now? Do the mission specialists have body function monitors connected to them as was the case for the Apollo crews? Is there telemetry still, or is it just recorded? After all, if the team were married, I doubt even the Moral Majority could complain about what would perhaps be one of the most fascinating experiments of the space program. -- Brad Templeton - Waterloo, Ont. (519) 886-7304 ------------------------------ Date: 24 Nov 83 4:58:40-PST (Thu) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: pur-ee!uiucdcs!uok!bsouther @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Will Weather Delay Launch? - (nf) #N:uok:1300001:000:403 uok!bsouther Nov 21 07:42:00 1983 Does anyone know if the recent storms in Florida will have any effect on the 28 November launch date of the shuttle? Also, can *someone* tell me what time the shuttle is sched- uled for launch? We here in Oklahoma don't appear to be in the mainstream of communication on these matters, so I'd really appreciate any info from netland. Thanks in advance, Brad Southers ...!duke!uok!bsouther ------------------------------ Date: 24 Nov 83 4:58:30-PST (Thu) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: pur-ee!uiucdcs!uok!bsouther @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Will Weather Delay Launch? - (nf) #N:uok:1300001:000:403 uok!bsouther Nov 21 07:42:00 1983 Does anyone know if the recent storms in Florida will have any effect on the 28 November launch date of the shuttle? Also, can *someone* tell me what time the shuttle is sched- uled for launch? We here in Oklahoma don't appear to be in the mainstream of communication on these matters, so I'd really appreciate any info from netland. Thanks in advance, Brad Southers ...!duke!uok!bsouther ------------------------------ Date: 26 Nov 83 14:28:24-PST (Sat) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: decvax!duke!ucf-cs!giles @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re:re:ABMs In-Reply-To: Article <163@ihu1e.UUCP> > I don't know about theirs, but our missiles have no self destruct > capabilities. The fact is, when they leave the hole there is no > way of stopping them so one had better be certain of what is going > on. We have no self-destruct capability on our missiles????? (ok -- pun unintentional) Quick, bring the smelling salts! Seriously, I knew we had fools in Washington, but I find that incredibly stupid. Yes, I know there is the risk of the enemy using our self- destruct code to destroy our missiles before they reach them, but compare the potential lose from losing some of our missiles to accidently starting a nuclear war. Besides, I am only concerned about accidental launches. So what if the self-destruct message takes (say) 5 minutes. If each missile had a different code, and they could not be addressed simultaneously we will still have an effective deterent. Of course, this makes my argument for an ABM system (High Frontier style, incidently) uncomfortably even more pertinent. (I know right now that I shall have nightmares tonight). Any more disquieting news out there? Bruce Giles decvax!ucf-cs!giles (UUCP) UCF, Dept of Math, Orlando Fl 32816 (Snail) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- P.S.: In the *Orlando Sentinel* today (26 November) there was a cartoon remarkably similar to my argument. It shows a flying saucer above a collection of jagged rocks in space, with two aliens speaking. The brunt of the dialog was that immediately after the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. actually stopped the arms race (spurred on by *The Day After* et nausea) Kaddafy blew up the world. Hopefully it is a syndicated cartoon; I only glanced at it. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------ Date: 26 Nov 83 14:45:19-PST (Sat) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: decvax!duke!ucf-cs!giles @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: Greenhouse effect In-Reply-To: Article <13942@sri-arpa.UUCP> Maybe I've missed something somewhere (although some may claim it is between my ears -- I've still fazed by that ABM discussion :-)), but I am getting somewhat comfused by the greenhouse effect. As I understand it, the earth's atmosphere will pass visible light. (no problems there). The earth (and atmosphere) absorb this light, is heated by same process, and reradiates energy somewhat like a black body (no problems there, either). The atmosphere is now opaque to the IR radiation, so the energy can not be reradiated *directly* back into space. (I'll accept as a working condition; I know in that Florida it is far cooler in the winter when the sky is clear compared to when it is overcast, but there may be other phenomena involved). But -- What keeps the atmosphere *as a whole* from being heated by thermal conduction, convenction (sp?), phase change, -- whatever --, and reradiating this energy from the upper atmosphere? After all, the earth *must* obey the laws of thermodynamics, and if you pour extra energy into the earth, does not that raise the effective temp- erature of the earth as a whole? And will not that cause the earth to act as a slightly warmer black body itself? In other words, are there not indirect ways of reradiating the energy into space, which may affect the weather distributions but *not* the mean tempature? [sidenote -- there was an article in an *Analog* a few months back on this topic, but I felt too many things were left out. Basically, the author seemed to treat the earth as a perfect black body, and I want to see climatic effects taken into account also. Things like changes in the composition of the atmosphere due to a change in the composition of dissolved gases in the seawater.] Bruce Giles decvax!ucf-cs!giles (UUCP) UCF, Dept of Math, Orlando Fl 32816 (Snail) ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 29-Nov-83 0303 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #50 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts at MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 50 Today's Topics: Night lights Countdown Begins Launch Scheduled for Tomorrow ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Monday, 28 November 1983 10:27:28 EST From: Howard.Gayle@CMU-CS-G To: Space@MIT-MC Subject: Night lights Message-ID: <1983.11.28.15.24.4.Howard.Gayle@CMU-CS-G> According to the BBC World Service, which cites Pravda, the Soviets are considering using orbiting mirrors to reflect sunlight onto their northern cities during the arctic winter. The report gave no details. ------------------------------ Date: 26 Nov 83 11:00:59-PST (Sat) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: ihnp4!cbosgd!mhuxl!eagle!allegra!alice!alb @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Countdown Begins The countdown for the launch of STS-9 began today, and launch is scheduled for Monday morning. However, a low pressure system is headed towards KSC and may threaten the launch. ------------------------------ Date: 27 Nov 83 11:25:00-PST (Sun) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: ihnp4!cbosgd!mhuxl!eagle!allegra!alice!alb @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Launch Scheduled for Tomorrow STS-9 is scheduled to launch at 1100 EST tomorrow (Monday, 28 November), but bad weather approaching KSC may postpone it. ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 30-Nov-83 0303 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #51 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts at MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 51 Today's Topics: rocket "belt" backup recovery Medals for cosmonauts Weather Threatens Launch Launched! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tuesday, 29 November 1983 10:54:50 EST From: David.Smith@CMU-CS-IUS To: space@mc cc: decvax!tektronix!tekgds!tekecs!orca!warner@Ucb-Vax Subject: rocket "belt" backup recovery Message-ID: <1983.11.29.15.51.4.David.Smith@CMU-CS-IUS> Well, if Mohammed can't go to the mountain, then the mountain will just have to come to Mohammed. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 29 Nov 83 15:38:39 EST From: Will Martin (DRXAL-FD) To: space@mit-mc cc: wmartin@brl-bmd Subject: Medals for cosmonauts Reading the news item about the return of the Soviet cosmonauts which mentioned the medals awarded to them caused me to wonder whether the US military astronauts get any special decorations or awards for flights. I believe that some of the earlier groups got medals at White House ceremonies, but I don't recall any specifics. What about the current group? The military have things like "campaign ribbons", awarded for serving in a certain location during a certain time period, and "hash marks" -- uniform enhancements that denote periods of service, such as one for each six months overseas or the like. Do the astronauts get any ribbons or decorations for each flight, or one with an oak-leaf cluster or other add-on for each successive mission or n days in space? As more and more people spend more time in space, it will eventually become a normal tour of duty for certain military occupational specialities, and I think that most specialists in hazardous duties (diving, explosive ordinance disposal, etc.) get some sort of award or decoration denoting longevity in the field, and another every so often (the time period varying with the field, I believe). Anyway, I would expect some sort of "Space Service" badge, with embellishments for each subsequent mission or number of missions, to be awarded to military serving in space. Does such an award already exist? Will Martin (WMartin@Office-3) ------------------------------ Date: 27 Nov 83 22:46:12-PST (Sun) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: harpo!eagle!allegra!alice!alb @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Weather Threatens Launch Although weather threatens the launch of the shuttle tomorrow morning, NASA has decided to go ahead with the external tank fueling, set to begin after midnight tonight. Weather at the emergency langing sites, in Spain and West Germany, is also predicted to be bad, with clearing expected by Wednesday. The current launch window expires after 5 December, when lunar reflection becomes too bright for Spacelab experiments. The next window is in February. ------------------------------ Date: 28 Nov 83 11:03:10-PST (Mon) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: harpo!floyd!vax135!cornell!tesla!mac @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Launched! STS 9 LIFTED OFF AT 11 AM !!! ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 01-Dec-83 0304 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #52 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts at MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 52 Today's Topics: STS-9 launch and Pravda announcement LAUNCH Shuttle orbit question Columbia landing info request st9 radio frequencies Re: Husband and Wife teams in space Re: Spacelab Turned On Re: uiucdcs.3825: Re: Space Solar Power - (nf) Re: contrails? - (nf) Spacelab Turned On Re: Re: CAN ANYONE TELL ME HOW TO GO ABOUT GETTING TICKETS Re: ucf-cs.1094: Re: Greenhouse effect net.astro material to replace tiles? Shuttle Security Re: STS-9 launch and Pravda announcement contrails? - (nf) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 28 Nov 83 13:56:05-PST (Mon) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: ihnp4!ihuxx!rjnoe @ Ucb-Vax Subject: STS-9 launch and Pravda announcement I saw CBS' coverage of the shuttle launch this morning. Kathryn Sullivan kept Morton Dean in line. They interrupted rather late, at about T-5 minutes or less (i.e. 1055 EST). For once a network anchor did not make a complete fool of himself. I would've liked to hear and see more of launch control operations, naturally, but this was some of the better coverage I've seen a network have of any shuttle launch after the first two. The roll seemed quite fast, I think perhaps they got their roll program finished in the same time as other flights, even though it was farther. I've forgotten, which way does 39-A face? I've got it on a map from my last visit, but I don't know where I put it. Oh, they had some pretty good aerial views of the launch as well. SRB sep was fairly clear, considering the weather. What a nominal launch! Pravda today announced Soviet intentions to construct a permanently manned orbiting space station. No timetable was given for this. -- Roger Noe ...ihnp4!ihlts!rjnoe ------------------------------ Date: 28 Nov 83 16:34:04-PST (Mon) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: harpo!eagle!allegra!alice!alb @ Ucb-Vax Subject: LAUNCH Weather was better than expected today, and the shuttle launched on time, at 1100 EST. ------------------------------ Date: 28 Nov 83 16:07:06-PST (Mon) To: space @ Mit-Mc Subject: Shuttle orbit question Forwarded-From: Ed Featherston HL01-1/P06 225-5241 From : DVINCI::FISHER Organization : Digital Equipment Corp. Subject: Shuttle orbit question Since STS-9's orbit passes north of Edwards AFB, and thus EAFB passes through the plane of the orbit twice per day, does this mean that the STS-9 has more landing opportunities than previous shuttles (which I understand have only two or three possible orbits per day from which they can reach Edwards)? Burns Mail address : ...decvax!decwrl!rhea!dvinci!fisher ------------------------------ Date: 28 Nov 83 16:06:28-PST (Mon) To: space @ Mit-Mc Subject: Columbia landing info request Forwarded-From: Ed Featherston HL01-1/P06 225-5241 From : DVINCI::FISHER Organization : Digital Equipment Corp. Subject: Columbia landing info request My local (Northeastern) paper says that the landing will be December 7 at 11:10 AM. Unfortunately it does not say what time zone they are talking about! Could someone confirm the date, time, and zone? Also, I am (by coincidence) going to be in the LA area on December 7. Do I need anything special (other than food and water) to go to Edwards for the landing? Any recommendations from landing veterans? Thanks for the help! Burns Mail address : ...decvax!decwrl!rhea!dvinci!fisher ------------------------------ Date: 28 Nov 83 14:46:13-PST (Mon) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: harpo!floyd!clyde!akgua!sb1!sb6!bpa!cp1!hart @ Ucb-Vax Subject: st9 radio frequencies The Goddard Space Flight Center amateur radio club is retransmitting the STS-9 space shuttle ground communications on the following frequencies: 1.single sideband 3.860 mhz 7.185 mhz 14.295 mhz 21.390 mhz 28.650 mhz 2.fm 147.450 mhz 3.amateur tv (color) 439.250 mhz input 426.250 mhz output ====================================================================== signed: Rod Hart (wa3mez) Chesapeake & Potomac Tel. Co. Bell Atlantic Inc. Silver Spring, Md. eagle!cp1!hart - sb6!cp1!hart - bpa!cp1!hart ====================================================================== ------------------------------ Date: 28 Nov 83 13:49:48-PST (Mon) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: decvax!genrad!security!linus!utzoo!kcarroll @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: Husband and Wife teams in space Well, Brad, while they haven't sent up any husband/wife teams yet, I believe that I remember hearing that the Soviets have already conducted "one of the most fascinating experiments of the space program," aboard their Salyut station sometime in the last couple of years. Also, keep in mind that the Shuttle is >awfully< small inside (except when Spacelab is attached), and that if there were two mission specialists aboard (I beleive the husband/wife teams are all airs of mission specialists), it'd be kind of hard to find any privacy on board. I don't know if there's even a hatch between the flight deck and the lower deck. This could present problems, especially for upstanding, all-american astronauts who would otherwise be willing to experiment. -Kieran A. Carroll (...decvax!utzoo!kcarroll) ------------------------------ Date: 29 Nov 83 19:45:58-PST (Tue) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: hplabs!hao!kpno!astrovax!ks @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: Spacelab Turned On There are no plans to allow the Spacelab to free-fly out of the shuttle cargo bay. It is dependent on the shuttle for transportation, attitude control, electrical power, and crew quarters. It is intended to be re-flown many times, however. Skylab was indeed much larger than the Spacelab is. The pressurized module for Spacelab is a mere 23 feet long, and the instrument pallet adds only a dozen or so more. Skylab was fabricated from surplus Saturn V third stages (the astronauts essentially lived inside a fuel tank), and as such was on the order of 80 feet long. The Skylab orbital workshop was also much more massive than the Spacelab, with a 120,000 lb vs 30,000 lb weight comparison. I don't claim that these numbers are exact, but they're pretty close. A good reference to check is Kenneth Gatland's (ed.) "Illustrated Encyclopedia of Space Technology." ------------------------------ Date: 28 Nov 83 13:59:20-PST (Mon) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: decvax!duke!phs!jtb @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: uiucdcs.3825: Re: Space Solar Power - (nf) What I said about infra-red being called "heat" was meant to explain how the common usage came about not to say that was correct usage. Of course all absorbed radiation will heat an object it's just that visible light and infra-red are the two forms of EM radiation that are most common in everyday life. Jose Torre-Bueno decvax!duke!phs!jtb ------------------------------ Date: 29 Nov 83 19:34:43-PST (Tue) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: hplabs!hao!kpno!astrovax!ks @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: contrails? - (nf) The effects that you saw on the nose of both SRB's during the STS-9 launch are due to the passage of the vehicle through Mach 1. What you saw was not smoke, but water vapor rapidly condensing out of the air in the (complicated) shock wave structure around the SRB nose. You can observe the same kind of effect when supersonic aircraft pass through the "sound barrier". The condensation should also be visible about the top of the external tank, if you get a chance to see that video tape again. ------------------------------ Date: 28 Nov 83 21:58:25-PST (Mon) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: harpo!eagle!allegra!alice!alb @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Spacelab Turned On As Columbia soared above the Earth today, the astronauts turned Spacelab on and entered it, officially starting its career as a space research center. All is going well with the shuttle, and NASA reports no trouble. ------------------------------ Date: 21 Nov 83 15:08:39-PST (Mon) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: decvax!microsoft!fluke!ssc-vax!eder @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: Re: CAN ANYONE TELL ME HOW TO GO ABOUT GETTING TICKETS 21 November 1983 The sound suppression system consists of plastic bags filled with water strung across the SRB holes in the pad, and six largest sprinkler heads you have ever seen. The plastic bags were added after STS-1. They absorb the ignition pulse of the SRB's by simply being vaporized. The sprinkler heads are about 8 feet tall and consist of a 40 inch pipe with an angled plate above the open end to spread the flow. They together throw 600,000 gallons of water all over the pad to keep it from catching on fire and soak up some of the sound energy. Dani Eder Boeing Aerospace ------------------------------ Date: 28 Nov 83 14:06:15-PST (Mon) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: decvax!duke!phs!jtb @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: ucf-cs.1094: Re: Greenhouse effect In answer to Bruce Giles's questions: The atmosphere is an inefficent radiator compared to the earth or because it is a gas. He is correct that the limit to the greenhouse effect is that as the planet heats it becomes a stronger IR sorce. Obviously an equlibrium is established which depends on the transparency of the atmosphere to visible and IR and the reflectivity of the planitary anet's surface in visible and IR. When the factors are such that the equlibrium temp. is high we say that the greenhouse effect is occuring. Jose Torre-Bueno decvax!duke!phs!jtb ------------------------------ Date: 30 Nov 83 10:24:47 PST (Wednesday) From: lynn.es@PARC-MAXC.ARPA Subject: net.astro To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC.ARPA cc: lynn.es@PARC-MAXC.ARPA, harpo!princeton!astrovax!wls@Ucb-Vax.ARPA How can we get distribution to us ARPAnet address people from the new net.astro, like we have been getting space info through SPACE@MIT-MC? Is anyone knowledgable about this willing to do it? I would certainly like to see it happen, and I imagine their are others listening who agree. Also, how about the connection the other way? Can I send messages to net.astro by some trivial understanding of how to address it? Thanks, /Don Lynn To wls: could you place this on net.astro please? Thanks. ------------------------------ Date: 28 Nov 83 15:51:55-PST (Mon) To: space@mit-mc From: sri-unix!decvax!duke!mcnc!dunc@unc.UUCP (Laura Glass)@CCA Subject: material to replace tiles? My brother told me that a new material was to replace the tiles on the bottom of future shuttles. This material, according to him, was much easier to apply than the tiles. Does anyone know anything about this? Laura Glass Univ. of North Carolina Chapel Hill unc!dunc ------------------------------ Date: 28 Nov 83 12:47:09-PST (Mon) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: decvax!duke!ucf-cs!giles @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Shuttle Security I was at Canaveral National Seashore on Thanksgiving, and thought many of you would be interested in the security surrounding the shuttle before the launch. In a word, there was none. For those of you unfamiliar with the cape, the access road to the beach passes within a few miles of the launch pads. In fact, on Thursday I could clearly make out the external tank and both SRBs. (The orbiter was under the canopy, or whatever they call it.) It is probabily within range of a high-power rifle, and certainly within range of a small ground-to-ground missile. When I have gone to the beach before previous launches, if the shuttle was on the pad a security officer has always stopped each car and asked questions. Questions such as: (1) have you been here before? (2) are you carrying any firearms? (3) are you carrying any explosives? Occasionally I have seen them turn back cars, or had them pull them to the side. But there was at least the appearance of active security. Thursday, however, there was none of that. You passed a sign stating that you where entering a security zone, and the first 1/2 mile of the beach was closed. That was it. And, the temperatures were warm enough that I was not alone on the beach. Does anyone know if they have dropped all security on the beach? I also heard that the beach will reopen the day after the launch, instead of the day after touchdown as before. I admit I enjoy the freedom which CNS provides (esp. the north end of Playalinda; you'ld have to be here) but security for the shuttle comes first. After all, the shuttle does provide a very tempting terrorist target. Anyone else have information on shuttle security? Bruce Giles --------------------------------------------- UUCP: decvax!ucf-cs!giles cs-net: giles@ucf ARPA: giles.ucf-cs@Rand-Relay Snail: University of Central Florida Dept of Math, POB 26000 Orlando Fl 32816 --------------------------------------------- ------------------------------ Date: 29 Nov 83 8:49:52-PST (Tue) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: harpo!eagle!mhuxl!ulysses!smb @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: STS-9 launch and Pravda announcement In-Reply-To: Article <603@ihuxx.UUCP> The Soviets have also announced a plan to orbit giant mirrors to illuminate their northern cities during the Arctic winter (source: NBC News). ------------------------------ Date: 28 Nov 83 22:27:27-PST (Mon) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: pur-ee!uiucdcs!miller @ Ucb-Vax Subject: contrails? - (nf) #N:uiucdcs:8500008:000:256 uiucdcs!miller Nov 28 14:33:00 1983 Watching the launch on CNN this morning, I observed something I have never seen before. Smoke appeared on the top of the SRB's about 30 sec. into the launch. I assume this was some form of contrail. Is this usual? (ps: it only lasted for 5 sec. or so.) ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 02-Dec-83 0303 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #53 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts at MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 53 Today's Topics: Re: STS-9 launch and Pravda announcement Re: ihuxf.1653: Re: Spacelab Turned On Congress in Space Re: rocket "belt" backup recovery Re: rocket "belt" backup recovery TRDS Failure Info???? - (nf) STS-9 Orbital Elements Re: Spacelab Turned On Re: Shuttle Security ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 29 Nov 83 9:52:13-PST (Tue) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: decvax!duke!mcnc!unc-c!dya @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: STS-9 launch and Pravda announcement The only decent coverage of an American space mission was that given by Home Box Office, for STS-1 { This was before they went 24 hours per day.} Their coverage of the launch and reentry was simply the pool feeds that the networks use, I guess, with the COMPLETE audio communications portion. Our local cable company decided to do routine maintainence about 7 seconds before landing !!!! { Fortunately, we had a semi-working earth station. } Why, why, WHY can't some do-gooder channel like C-SPAN; or at least someone with idle transponder time, do this ? I'd like to see all the uninterrupted video and hear all the audio transmissions without some stupid announcer cutting off the good parts. What a way to build American interest in the space programme ! --David { decvax!duke!mcnc!unc-c!dya } ------------------------------ Date: 30 Nov 83 9:24:17-PST (Wed) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: decvax!duke!phs!jtb @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: ihuxf.1653: Re: Spacelab Turned On The Spacelab is incapable of free flying operations it draws power and other services form the shuttle. The ESA and NASA are considering a follow on design baised on the Spacelab which would be free flying. One reasion it was designed to return to earth each time is that it is designed to be rapidly reconfigurable for different kinds of research, the concept being that it will be used mostly for short term and piolet studies. The Skylab was large inside because it was built inside an empty fuel tank. Jose Torre-Bueno decvax!duke!phs!jtb ------------------------------ Date: 1 Dec 1983 12:58:46 EST (Thursday) From: Roger Frye Subject: Congress in Space To: Space-Enthusiasts at MIT-MC Cc: Frye@BBN-UNIX From: decvax!watmath!bstempleton @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Husband and Wife teams in space Will there soon be a mission where both go up together? If so, I am sure I need not detail the interesting things that are possible. Of course sex in space has been possible all along, but I suppose you were thinking only of sex between two people, of opposite sex, married, and, oh yes, heterosexually oriented. ------------------------------ Date: 01 Dec 83 12:50:54 PST (Thu) From: Martin D. Katz Return-Path: Subject: Re: rocket "belt" backup recovery To: David.Smith@Cmu-Cs-Ius Cc: space@Mit-Mc, decvax!tektronix!tekgds!tekecs!orca!warner@Ucb-Vax Although it might be feasible to match the orbit of a ship or station to pick up a space pedestrian in an emergency, if the dV is not too high, the pedestrian may be able to throw the "rocked belt" away from the ship and thus maneuver toward the ship (better save something to throw for final maneuver when approaching the ship). ------------------------------ Date: Thursday, 1 December 1983 21:17:01 EST From: David.Smith@CMU-CS-IUS To: Martin D.Katz cc: space@Mit-Mc, decvax!tektronix!tekgds!tekecs!orca!warner@Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: rocket "belt" backup recovery Message-ID: <1983.12.2.2.7.44.David.Smith@CMU-CS-IUS> A shuttle orbiter is in trouble if its available dV doesn't dwarf what an astronaut can get from throwing his backpack. Anyway, that backpack contains his oxygen supply. David Smith ------------------------------ Date: 29 Nov 83 22:35:34-PST (Tue) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: pur-ee!notes @ Ucb-Vax Subject: TRDS Failure Info???? - (nf) #N:ecn-ee:21800001:000:393 ecn-ee!malcolm Nov 29 22:04:00 1983 Can anybody tell me what happened to the TDRS? I've only caught very brief non-technical items on its partial failure. Did it lose one of its transceivers and how does it affect the entire bird? Thanks. Malcolm Slaney Purdue EE Dept. P.S. The TDRS is the Tracking Data Relay Station that was put up by the Shuttle earlier this year and is crucial to the sucess of SpaceLab. ------------------------------ Date: 29 Nov 83 12:30:46-PST (Tue) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: harpo!eagle!allegra!karn @ Ucb-Vax Subject: STS-9 Orbital Elements Satellite: sts-9 Catalog number: 14523 Epoch time: 83333.59578650 Tue Nov 29 14:17:55.954 1983 UTC Element set: MH 11-29-83 Inclination: 57.0210 deg RA of node: 202.7920 deg Eccentricity: 0.0008415 Arg of perigee: 275.8170 deg Mean anomaly: 84.0300 deg Mean motion: 16.09484667 rev/day Decay rate: 0.00294794 rev/day^2 Epoch rev: 0 Semi major axis: 6626.029 km Anom period: 89.469631 min Apogee: 268.354 km Perigee: 257.202 km ------------------------------ Date: 29 Nov 83 7:53:29-PST (Tue) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: ihnp4!ihuxf!larry @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: Spacelab Turned On In-Reply-To: Article <2319@alice.UUCP> Pardon my ignorance about "Space Lab" --but is that package going to be seperated from Columbia and left in orbit, or does a shuttle have to take it up each time? If it is left in orbit, will the shuttles be able to get it high enough to prevent another "Sky Lab"? If it is left in orbit, how do the people get from the shuttle to the lab? (grab it with the arm and pull it in the cargo bay each time?) It would seem awful wasteful (and hazordous to any delicate equipment) to take that rough ride "up" each time Space Lab was to be used. As a side question, can anybody provide a size comparison between Sky Lab and Space Lab?? There was a show on PBS the other day that had some footage of the inside of Sky Lab --MY GOSH IT WAS **HUGH**!! Pictures from the outside never made it seem so big - nothing to reference it with I guess. Too bad the shuttles didn't get going in time to save it. -- Larry Marek ihnp4!ihuxf!larry ------------------------------ Date: 29 Nov 83 14:42:10-PST (Tue) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: harpo!eagle!allegra!karn @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: Shuttle Security In-Reply-To: Article <1097@ucf-cs.UUCP> I don't understand how anyone can say that there was no security at Kennedy surrounding the shuttle launch complex. I was there for STS-9 starting on Saturday (T-2 days) with press credentials. I lost track of how many roadblocks we had to pass through and how many times we had to individually show our badges and car passes. Armed guards were present at all intersections in the areas leading to the pad, VAB, landing strip, etc. When we took the bus tours out to the pad areas on the day before launch, we had to exchange our badges for red hazard area passes so that they would know who was trying to hide in the bushes. This was true even though we were not taken through the perimeter fence around the launch pad - only on the Saturn Causeway running parallel to the crawlerway and around on Cape Road on the east side of the pad. It should be pointed out that pad 39A (used for STS-9) is the southernmost pad at Launch Complex 39; pad B, when it becomes operational, will most likely push the security perimeter much further north along the beach. Despite the ubiquitous presence of security people, they were universally courteous and polite to us, and I think everybody good-naturedly accepted the need for at least SOME of the hassles. Its a shame that a realistic view of human nature makes security necessary. I would say, though, that concern for safety is probably a larger factor than protection against crazies. KSC is so large that just accounting for each and every person's whereabouts at the time of launch, even when they aren't intentionally trying to violate the security zones, must be a major challenge. After you've first seen how enormous the pad area is, and then how fast the blast wave from SRB ignition spreads to cover the entire area, you begin to develop a very healthy respect for the beast. Phil Karn ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 03-Dec-83 0303 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #54 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts at MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 54 Today's Topics: Re: X-ray lasers Nasa Address Re: Apollo Program (Semi-Trivia) Questio - (nf) Rocket "belt" and KSC security Re: STS-9 launch and Pravda announcement Re: SPACE Digest V4 #53 Re: rocket "belt" backup recovery Re: rocket "belt" backup recovery Re: Spacelab Turned On Re: Spacelab Turned On Re: rocket belt Re: rocket "belt" backup recovery More on STS-9 sighting STS-9 optical visibility ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 1 Dec 83 4:52:12-PST (Thu) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: decvax!dartvax!robertm @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: X-ray lasers Another point : Since the X-rays can't go through the atmosphere, they can't destroy low-flying (Cruise) missiles. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 2 Dec 83 06:21 PST From: jcastro.es@PARC-MAXC.ARPA Subject: Nasa Address To: space@Mit-Mc.ARPA cc: jcastro.es@PARC-MAXC.ARPA Does anyone out there know what the mailing address for NASA is? ------------------------------ Date: 29 Nov 83 3:47:38-PST (Tue) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: hplabs!hp-pcd!jon @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: Apollo Program (Semi-Trivia) Questio - (nf) This LEM guidance computer had 32K bytes of ROM and 2K bytes of RAM. Its easy to see how it could be overloaded (read as compute bound). Jon B ------------------------------ Date: 2 Dec 1983 07:30:41 PST From: CARROLL@USC-ISIB Subject: Rocket "belt" and KSC security To: space@MIT-MC About the "rocket belt" backup: how about a mini-mass driver? Would a standard type slingshot absorb too much energy in the rubber part to be useful? How about an old-fashion shepherd's sling? The astronaut would also carry a supply of dense pellets, say ball bearings. They would be flung away at such high speed that it would change his velocity a little. This would require some erratic, quick motion by the astronaut. Maybe just a pistol.......of course, any thrust must be through his center of gravity or he'll just be set spinning head-over-heels instead of going anywhere! Re security at KSC: I've not been to a shuttle launch, but I had an interesting experience at the Apollo launch for the ASTP link-up with the Russkies. I was at the "VIP" site, but a friend was able to get me over to the press site. I decided the angle was better from the first place, even though further away, and since there was plenty of time before the launch, I headed back, ON FOOT. I was walking merrily along the road that runs next to the VAB, and encountered two security checkpoints along the way. I explained, and was allowed to pass. The third guy, though, took me to security HQ, they checked me out with the CIA (that's what they said), and finally drove me back to where I wanted to go. By this time, there were only about twenty minutes until launch. I was pretty unnerved by the experience, because there had been talk about dumping me outside the front gate! That was in 1975, and I was 18. Steve (carroll@ISIB) ------------------------------ Date: 2 Dec 83 11:21:04 EST (Friday) From: Heiny.Henr@PARC-MAXC.ARPA Subject: Re: STS-9 launch and Pravda announcement In-reply-to: decvax!duke!mcnc!unc-c!dya's message of 02 Dec 83 03:03 PST To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC.ARPA cc: Heiny.henr@PARC-MAXC.ARPA For those of you in the Rochester, N.Y. area, one of the channels on People's Cable (27?? I'm not sure...) is carrying what appears to be live shuttle stuff. Most of the time it's not very exciting, just people sitting at desks on the ground, doing obscure things in the lab, or reading aarcane strings of numbers and abbreviations. Sometimes some interesting things happen, though... Chris ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 2 Dec 83 09:54 PST From: NNicoll.ES@PARC-MAXC.ARPA Subject: Re: SPACE Digest V4 #53 To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC.ARPA cc: NNicoll.ES@PARC-MAXC.ARPA Hey Jose, why are they using such an expensive piece of equipment as the SpaceLab to study mountaineering ice axes (see arrows)? {the concept being that it will be used mostly for short term and "piolet"__ studies} Nick Nicoll ------------------------------ Date: 02 Dec 83 09:31:42 PST (Fri) From: Martin D. Katz Return-Path: Subject: Re: rocket "belt" backup recovery To: David.Smith@Cmu-Cs-Ius Cc: "Martin D. Katz" , space@Mit-Mc, decvax!tektronix!tekgds!tekecs!orca!warner@Ucb-Vax In-Reply-To: Your message of Thursday, 1 December 1983 21:17:01 EST. <1983.12.2.2.7.44.David.Smith@CMU-CS-IUS> Via: UCI; 2 Dec 83 14:09-PST Although a shuttle orbiter's available dV dwarfs that available to an astronaut throwing away disabled pieces of equipment, it may not be the case that the shuttle could afford the extra maneuvering propellant. It also depends on what the astronaut was doing: if the astronaut was repairing a satellite, the shuttle may not be able to maneuver close enough to pick up the astronaut without damaging the satellite. As to what to throw, I didn't suggest throwing the backpack. If the personal maneuvering unit uses a jet of pressurized gas separate from the gas used in the life support pack, it could be a separate unit and could be thrown. Actually, the original question was about a backup for a "rocket belt." In a well designed system, one might use three separate nozzles, each with its own contol valve and source of propellant. The fact that there are three separate systems might eliminate the necessity for an explicit backup. ------------------------------ Date: Friday, 2 December 1983 20:57:07 EST From: David.Smith@CMU-CS-IUS To: Martin D.Katz cc: "Martin D. Katz" , space@Mit-Mc, decvax!tektronix!tekgds!tekecs!orca!warner@Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: rocket "belt" backup recovery Message-ID: <1983.12.2.23.24.57.David.Smith@CMU-CS-IUS> Although a shuttle orbiter's available dV dwarfs that available to an astronaut throwing away disabled pieces of equipment, it may not be the case that the shuttle could afford the extra maneuvering propellant. I think the planners would be remiss to omit contingency fuel. ... if the astronaut was repairing a satellite, the shuttle may not be able to maneuver close enough to pick up the astronaut without damaging the satellite. So the astronaut could push off the satellite, or the shuttle could wait until he drifted far enough away from it. If he were tangled with the satellite, another astronaut would probably have to be sent. As to what to throw, I didn't suggest throwing the backpack. If the personal maneuvering unit uses a jet of pressurized gas separate from the gas used in the life support pack, it could be a separate unit and could be thrown. OK, but the current unit is in one piece -- which is not to say that the breathing oxygen is used for propellant. Actually, the original question was about a backup for a "rocket belt." In a well designed system, one might use three separate nozzles, each with its own contol valve and source of propellant. The fact that there are three separate systems might eliminate the necessity for an explicit backup. The current maneuvering unit does have a number of jets -- for six-axis control, I believe. I don't know about extra propellant tanks. In my view, the dangerous possibility is not that a thruster could become inoperable, but that it could be jammed on, as happened with Gemini 8. Without an emergency cutout, or counteracting backup, the astronaut could be spun so fast as to be rendered unconscious. ------------------------------ Date: 29 Nov 83 15:49:06-PST (Tue) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: harpo!eagle!allegra!alice!alb @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: Spacelab Turned On In-Reply-To: Article <1653@ihuxf.UUCP> Spacelab will be taken up in the shuttle each time it (Spacelab) is to fly; it is never released from the cargo bay. ------------------------------ Date: 29 Nov 83 12:33:01-PST (Tue) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: ihnp4!ihuxs!okie @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: Spacelab Turned On In-Reply-To: Article <2319@alice.UUCP>, <1653@ihuxf.UUCP> Spacelab will not be left in orbit; it has no guidance/stabilization systems, nor any long-term orbital life support capabilities. If it is to be used more than once, it will be lifted by shuttle each time. I, too, was amazed at the open feel and the size of Spacelab. But after thinking about it, I realized that it pretty much fills the cargo bay of the shuttle -- and that's a goodly space to fill. Plus most of the space is open, to allow a group of people to move about and work without getting in each other's way. If you'll remember, Skylab was much bigger, but it was more crowded -- divided into "decks", filled with life-support and research equipment. The only really big open space was near the passage to the docking module; they did the tests with the EVA mobility pack up in that space. The specialists that work in Spacelab actually live in the shuttle's crew compartments. Hope this helps, B.K.Cobb AT&T Bell Laboratories, Naperville, IL ------------------------------ Date: 28 Nov 83 17:01:44-PST (Mon) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: harpo!floyd!vax135!cornell!uw-beaver!ssc-vax!eder @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: rocket belt In-Reply-To: Article <338@orca.UUCP> 28 November 1983 The real world backup system is the Shuttle Orbiter. You go after the guy and get him. Dani Eder Boeing Aerospace uw-beaver!ssc-vax!eder ------------------------------ Date: 3 December 1983 04:07 EST From: Robert Elton Maas Subject: Re: rocket "belt" backup recovery To: katz.uci-750a @ RAND-RELAY cc: SPACE @ MIT-MC If you throw the rocket belt in the usual way, "over" the head, much of the momentum goes to rotation rather than translation, so the poor astronaut is now spinning rapidly and only slowly approaching the rescue ship. Even pitching from the waist doesn't work well, you get angular momentun along your vertical axis. You must throw from the center of mass. Either you press from your tummy, or you bend your body into horseshoe and toss sideward thru the inside of the curve. Either way, it takes considerable training to throw directly from the center of mass of the human body, and without that training an attempt to toss the rocket belt would probably do more harm than good, giving a totally disoriented spinning astronaut who can't even maintain gaze on the rescue ship as it seems to revolving around and around and around at immense speed. ------------------------------ Date: 30 Nov 83 23:41:09-PST (Wed) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: harpo!eagle!allegra!karn @ Ucb-Vax Subject: More on STS-9 sighting Some more details on an opportunity to sight STS-9 this evening (Wednesday): At my location (northeast NJ, near New York) the shuttle will rise at 6:34pm in the northwest, pass toward the south reaching a maximum elevation of 29 degrees in the southwest, and set at 6:42 pm in the southeast. However, at 6:39:11 pm, it will enter the earth's shadow while due south and at an elevation of 18 degrees. I would be interested in any observation reports, particularly exact timings of the shadow crossing, to gauge the accuracy of the orbital elements I have. Give it a try! Phil Karn ------------------------------ Date: 30 Nov 83 23:32:34-PST (Wed) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: ihnp4!houxm!mhuxl!eagle!allegra!karn @ Ucb-Vax Subject: STS-9 optical visibility I see from some orbital predictions that STS-9 will be above the horizon for some passes over the US after dusk tomorrow; in particular, there are two passes (22:02-22:08 and 23:35 to 23:41 UTC on 11/30/83) for New York which I will try to observe tomorrow. This should be the first shuttle flight to be easily observable from the major portion of the US due to its high inclination orbit. Phil ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 04-Dec-83 0303 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #55 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts at MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 55 Today's Topics: W5LFL Heard! Re: material to replace tiles? RE: Spacelab turned on Updated STS-9 Elements More optical sightings of STS-9 STS-9 May Be Extended ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 1 Dec 83 0:20:37-PST (Thu) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: harpo!floyd!vax135!ariel!hou5f!hou5g!hou5h!eagle!allegra!karn @ Ucb-Vax Subject: W5LFL Heard! Posted: Wed Nov 30, 1983 9:50 PM EST Msg: TGID-1670-3247 From: JREYMANN To: AMSAT Subj: W5LFL, #40 W5LFL showed up on orbit 40. Heard the first part of his first space/ earth contact! Problem with people uplinking on his freq was compounded an order of magnitude by turkeys trying to shut him up. Much more discipline needed. KL7GRF and I trying to get out the word with virtually non-stop info nets on fm and ssb when Owen not in range. Gud luk! 73, W6PAJ Posted: Wed Nov 30, 1983 10:58 PM EST Msg: DGID-1670-3451 From: VRIP To: AMSAT Subj: More W5LFL #40 W5LFL apparently began operations from Columbia on orbit 40 this evening. There are sketchy reports of hearing W5LFL on orbit 35 but these are as yet unconfirmed. According to ARRL, Columbia was due to be flying in an unfavorable attitude on orbits 34 through 39 with the antenna pointed to the sky instead of earthward. I have just listened to an audio recording of W5LFL's pass over the northwest on orbit 40 made by KA7APJ, Jim Smith, Area Coordinator for Washington, QTH, Seattle. Garriott's signal was truly outstanding. A DFQ signal with no interference whatsoever. He was calling CQ North America from W5LFL on the space ship Columbia. It was really him too. I recognized his voice with certainty. KA7APJ was not able to establish contact, however. He had a live TV crew on-scene for the excitement. I think it's fair to say that the media (broadcast and print) have glommed onto this event even more strongly than we had hoped (feared?)! Tomorrow the ultimate test. W5LFL over Washington, Baltimore, New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Hartford, simultaneously. Can you imagine the QRM?!? ------------------------------ Date: 1 Dec 83 8:56:13-PST (Thu) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: hplabs!intelca!omsvax!ogcvax!tektronix!uw-beaver!ssc-vax!eder @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: material to replace tiles? In-Reply-To: Article <6329@unc.UUCP> December 1,1983 The material you are probably thinking of is Advanced Flexible Reusable Surface Insulation (mercifully shortened to AFRSI, pronounced "a frizzy"), which is being used on some areas of the later orbiters. It is not being used on the bottom, but rather in the coolest areas formerly covered by tiles. This includes the OMS pods, and part of the sidewalls. The material is ceramic fibers covered with a ceramic cloth. The advantage over tiles is that it is stronger and less expensive. Dani Eder Boeing Aerospace ssc-vax!eder ------------------------------ Date: 1 Dec 83 13:52:48-PST (Thu) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: decvax!tektronix!tekgds!tekecs!waltt @ Ucb-Vax Subject: RE: Spacelab turned on ------------ I was at the Smithsonian a couple of months ago and toured the Skylab back-up that they have there. C'mon, now. It wasn't that big. Most of the livable area was divided up into very small (about 4 x 5 ft) areas. The largest open area was close to the docking hatch. -- Walt ------------------------------ Date: 1 Dec 83 9:51:26-PST (Thu) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: harpo!floyd!vax135!ariel!hou5f!hou5g!hou5h!eagle!allegra!karn @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Updated STS-9 Elements Satellite: sts-9 Catalog number: 14523 Epoch time: 83335.58237270 Thu Dec 1 13:58:37.128 1983 UTC Element set: MH 12-1 Inclination: 57.0220 deg RA of node: 193.3560 deg Eccentricity: 0.0008956 Arg of perigee: 298.8020 deg Mean anomaly: 61.0790 deg Mean motion: 16.10962707 rev/day Decay rate: 0.00420703 rev/day^2 Epoch rev: 47 Semi major axis: 6623.656 km Anom period: 89.387544 min Apogee: 262.999 km Perigee: 251.135 km ------------------------------ Date: 1 Dec 83 12:22:21-PST (Thu) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: harpo!eagle!allegra!karn @ Ucb-Vax Subject: More optical sightings of STS-9 Tired of listening to all the terrestrial interference on 145.55 mhz? Why not try visually sighting Columbia? The next opportunity for the northeastern USA (specifically my backyard in Warren, NJ) will be this evening at 6:24:14 pm. It will rise at azimuth 302 degrees (northwest), moving south, and reach a maximum of 17 degrees elevation at azimuth 252 degrees before entering the earth's shadow at 6:27:31 pm EST. Azimuth 252 is almost the same as that of the sun when it sets this evening. A group of us may have spotted the shuttle last night on the 5:02pm pass, but the combination of twilight and lots of air traffic may have fooled us. On this pass, the sun will have completely set. Phil ------------------------------ Date: 1 Dec 83 18:32:42-PST (Thu) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: harpo!eagle!allegra!alice!alb @ Ucb-Vax Subject: STS-9 May Be Extended NASA said today that Spacelab has been so successful so far that it might extend the mission duration of STS-9 by one day in order to gather more data from it. The shuttle has enough extra fuel and supplies for 2 to 3 more days in orbit if required. ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 05-Dec-83 0303 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #56 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts at MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 56 Today's Topics: Seeing a shuttle landing at Edwards Re: Medals for cosmonauts - (nf) Re: Spacelab Turned On - (nf) STS-9 element update Satellite Conference Call ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 4 Dec 83 15:12:25 PST From: Willard Korfhage To: space@mit-mc Subject: Seeing a shuttle landing at Edwards Is there anything I should know about seeing a shuttle landing at Edwards? Things I should know or be prepared for before I go? How do I find out which landings are open to the public? Thanks, Willard Korfhage ------------------------------ Date: 2 Dec 83 4:55:31-PST (Fri) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: decvax!tektronix!ucbcad!notes @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: Medals for cosmonauts - (nf) #R:sri-arpa:-1412400:ucbesvax:8700009:000:1431 ucbesvax!turner Dec 2 02:57:00 1983 Re: medals for cosmonauts, what for astronauts This is conjecture, but I think the reason that U.S. astronauts aren't routinely decorated the way cosmonauts are has to do with attitudes toward militarization. May Day parades in Red Square are ominously symmetrical: military honchos on one side of the podium, politburo flacks on the other. You don't see much of that here--I think there's even a law that says that the President shall not appear in uniform, even as commander in chief. In the USSR, nuclear fuel and waste shipments travel under guard by Red Army convoys. In the U.S., even the nuclear *weapons* industry has always (ostensibly) been a civilian outfit. (Back when Reagan still dreamed of axing DoE, it was thought that the nuclear weapons programs could be transferred to the Department of Commerce.) Perhaps the inception of the Soviet space program was marked by cooperation among the (less divided?) branches of their military. Here, NASA was formed, in part, out of exasperation with the infighting, secretiveness, and competition between branches of the armed forces who were trying to outdo each other's space programs. Perhaps our more civilian administration was loathe to decide which 4-star general would do the pinning of the medal, and simply discouraged the practice, even though the astronauts were themselves military men. Conjecture, as I say. --- Michael Turner (ucbvax!ucbesvax.turner) ------------------------------ Date: 2 Dec 83 8:41:54-PST (Fri) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: decvax!wivax!linus!utzoo!kcarroll @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: Spacelab Turned On - (nf) In-Reply-To: Article <4247@uiucdcs.UUCP>, <432@ihuxs.UUCP> ------------------------------ Date: 4 Dec 83 8:23:01-PST (Sun) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: harpo!eagle!allegra!karn @ Ucb-Vax Subject: STS-9 element update Satellite: sts-9 Catalog number: 14523 Epoch time: 83338.55976020 Sun Dec 4 13:26:03.281 1983 UTC Element set: MH 12-4 Inclination: 57.0140 deg RA of node: 179.1810 deg Eccentricity: 0.0004664 Arg of perigee: 287.5080 deg Mean anomaly: 72.4560 deg Mean motion: 16.12408909 rev/day Decay rate: 0.0046165 rev/day^2 Epoch rev: 95 Semi major axis: 6618.016 km Anom period: 89.307371 min Apogee: 256.642 km Perigee: 250.469 km ------------------------------ Date: 4 Dec 83 7:14:29-PST (Sun) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: ihnp4!houxm!mhuxl!eagle!allegra!alice!alb @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Satellite Conference Call At 0940 EST tomorrow (Monday), a satellite conference will take place, including President Reagan, West German Chancellor Helmut Koul, and the COlumbia astronauts. Meanwhile, astronaut Owen Garriot talked to Jordan Kind Hussein on his ham radio yesterday. ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 06-Dec-83 0303 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #57 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts at MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 57 Today's Topics: Re: Orphaned Response - (nf) Shuttle orbital elements Re: rocket "belt" backup recovery H. G. Wells and the Tao ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 5 Dec 83 0:13:16-PST (Mon) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: hplabs!hp-pcd!hpfcla!ajs @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: Orphaned Response - (nf) We just saw the shuttle half an hour ago, after reading in the local paper that it would be visible the last three days. (The previous two were cloudy.) We had a clear view tonight, and a watch set to WWV, but I'm afraid I didn't get exact times -- it was clearly visible when I first noticed it. It looked like a bright, white, steady star (point source) moving at a rate comparable to a high-flying jet. Of course it did not flash or change color, though (like the plane that distracted me while looking for it!). Here are my observations: * Local sunset at 1634 MST (exactly one hour earlier). * First seen at heading 225deg (SW), +/- 20deg, at 173430 MST +/- 20sec. * Greatest elevation 30deg +/- 10deg. * Greatest magnitude 1 (rough guess, comparable to the brightest stars visible in the twilight). * Slowly faded and dropped to SSW, 175deg +/- 10deg, disappearing at 173750 MST +/- 20sec about 10deg above the horizon. Alan Silverstein, Hewlett-Packard Fort Collins Systems Division, Colorado ucbvax!hplabs!hpfcla!ajs, 303-226-3800 x3053, N 40 31'31" W 105 00'43" ------------------------------ Date: Monday, 5 December 1983 21:33 est From: Schauble@MIT-MULTICS.ARPA Subject: Shuttle orbital elements To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC.ARPA Message-ID: <831206023306.776109@MIT-MULTICS.ARPA> I appreciate the posting of shuttle orbital elements for each flight. Now, does anyone have a program, preferably in C or BASIC, that can use these to calculate shuttle sightings from the ground? Paul ------------------------------ Date: 05 Dec 83 13:55:24 PST (Mon) From: Martin D. Katz Return-Path: Subject: Re: rocket "belt" backup recovery To: David.Smith@Cmu-Cs-Ius Cc: space@Mit-Mc, decvax!tektronix!tekgds!tekecs!orca!warner@Ucb-Vax In-Reply-To: Your message of Friday, 2 December 1983 20:57:07 EST. <1983.12.2.23.24.57.David.Smith@CMU-CS-IUS> Via: UCI; 5 Dec 83 17:47-PST David.Smith@Cmu-Cs-Ius (Dec. 2) ... the breathing oxygen is used for propellant. The current maneuvering unit does have a number of jets -- for six-axis control, I believe. I don't know about extra propellant tanks. In my view, the dangerous possibility is not that a thruster could become inoperable, but that it could be jammed on, ... Thank you, I was unaware of the details of the current NASA design of portable propulsion. I don't think that NASA would have approved the routine use of breathing oxygen for other purposes a decade ago. Is this another cost cutting measure? Suppose that the valve on a jet sticks open, the force can be approximately counterbalanced by opening the opposite valve. The remaining spin can be negated by use of the the pair of jets which are 60 degrees from the jet used to counteract the broken jet. I would worry more about using up all of that oxygen -- how long before the the pressure runs down too low for the astronaut to breath or propel himself? ------------------------------ Date: 5 Dec 83 13:22:26-PST (Mon) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: hplabs!hao!kpno!astrovax!elt @ Ucb-Vax Subject: H. G. Wells and the Tao ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- In one nights reading I came across the following two quotes, both of which made me think of the space-o-philes of this news group. The past is but the beginning of the beginning, and all that is and has been, is but the twilight of the dawn ... There will come a day when beings now latent in our thoughts and hidden in our loins shall stand upon this Earth as one stands upon a footstool and laugh and reach out their hands amid the stars. H. G. Wells The universe is sacred. You cannot improve it. If you try to change it, you will ruin it. If you try to hold it, you will lose it. Tao Te Ching Ed Turner astrovax!elt ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 07-Dec-83 0302 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #58 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts at MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 58 Today's Topics: W5LFL heard in INDIANA STS-9 element update Re: rocket "belt" backup recovery OASIS 10 December: IRAS ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 5 Dec 83 7:33:54-PST (Mon) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: ihnp4!inuxc!wheatley @ Ucb-Vax Subject: W5LFL heard in INDIANA W5LFL was heard with a very strong signal at 10:08:15EST and 10:10 EST in central indiana Sunday Morning. He seemed to not follow the format prescribed where he was to transmit for an entire minute. He transmitted quickly, and then allowed more than the allotted minute for ground stations to contact him. He gave a brief account of the view from the spacecraft, as it crossed from Houston up over the Great lakes, and acknowledged only one call, but he was not sure of the exact call, indicating that he would retrieve it from the tape when he was on the ground. At any rate, the best chance of working W5LFL seems to be a matter of getting on his tape, in other words, don't worry if you dont hear him acknowledge your call! On other matters, anyone volunteer to decipher the tape he is making!! What a job that will be, especially if a intense effort is made to pull all the calls out of the tape, rather than just the obvious ones. I guess they will be listed in some form or another in the future. W5LFL was reported , by W5RRR and others, to have worked JY1, King Hussein of Jordan, on the same orbit referred to above, as the shuttle descended over Europe and Asia. In fact, local repeater chatter indicated that perhaps a qso occurred, not just a one way "I heard JY1" by W5LFL. Steve Wheatley, inuxc!wheatley ------------------------------ Date: 5 Dec 83 11:52:25-PST (Mon) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: harpo!eagle!allegra!karn @ Ucb-Vax Subject: STS-9 element update Satellite: sts-9 Catalog number: 14523 Epoch time: 83339.61349018 Mon Dec 5 14:43:25.552 1983 UTC Element set: MH 12-5-83 Inclination: 57.0190 deg RA of node: 174.1650 deg Eccentricity: 0.0004531 Arg of perigee: 313.5410 deg Mean anomaly: 46.3590 deg Mean motion: 16.12125940 rev/day Decay rate: 0.0048117 rev/day^2 Epoch rev: 112 Semi major axis: 6618.790 km Anom period: 89.323046 min Apogee: 251.551 km Perigee: 245.553 km ------------------------------ Date: Tuesday, 6 December 1983 08:48:14 EST From: David.Smith@CMU-CS-IUS To: Martin D.Katz cc: space@Mit-Mc Subject: Re: rocket "belt" backup recovery Message-ID: <1983.12.6.13.30.14.David.Smith@CMU-CS-IUS> Whoa!!! I am quoted as having said ... the breathing oxygen is used for propellant. What I actually said was OK, but the current unit is in one piece -- which is not to say that the breathing oxygen is used for propellant. I don't know what the propellant is, but I can't imagine that it comes from the breathing supply. My guess is hydrogen peroxide. The little hand-held maneuvering gun used by Ed White on Gemini 4 had its own compressed oxygen tank. ------------------------------ Date: 6 Dec 83 20:54:31 PST (Tuesday) Subject: OASIS 10 December: IRAS To: Space@MIT-MC.ARPA cc: Hamilton.ES@PARC-MAXC.ARPA From: Bruce Hamilton Reply-To: Hamilton.ES@PARC-MAXC.ARPA OASIS (Southern California L5) General Meeting free and open to the public WHEN: 10 December 7 pm WHERE: Kinsey Auditorium California Museum of Science and Industry SPEAKER: Dr. Thomas Chester, IRAS Science Support Team Chief TOPIC: IRAS's Astronomical Breakthroughs ABSTRACT: The Infrared Astronomical Satellite (IRAS) has opened up a new era in astronomical thought and perspective. Viewing the sky in infrared, far beyond the limits of human sight, IRAS has uncovered scenes that are not only remarkable astronomically, but strangely beautiful as well. Dr. Chester will speak on the IRAS discoveries that have been in the news and show some of the discoveries that dazzle IRAS scientists and non-astronomers alike. He will talk about the ring of material around the star Vega that might hold planets; the ring of dust around our own solar system; the detection of half a dozen new comets; the first large-scale infrared panoramic views of the universe, and the never-before-seen center of our Milky Way galaxy. This will be one of the first public presentations of this material. --Bruce ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 08-Dec-83 0302 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #59 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts at MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 59 Today's Topics: Re: rocket "belt" backup recovery STS-9 equator crossing reference Re: material to replace tiles? - (nf) Shuttle sighting. STS-9 Media Coverage Re: Optical Sightings of STS-9 Whatta loss ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tuesday, 6 Dec 83 10:31:13 PST From: orca!warner@rand-relay Return-Path: Subject: Re: rocket "belt" backup recovery Yes jets (or thrusters) stuck on is another problem for which a contingency plan must be developed. The idea of throwing objects (such as the jet pack itself) is a bit expensive to say the least. Probably not that effective in any case. As an aside, has there ever been an experiment that would support such a hypothesis that an astronaut could actually perform this feat effectivly ? My original idea of a spring loaded gun shooting a magnet that is connected by a wire to the astronaut seems more direct. Also is there any orbital mechanics that are being over looked? What would be the orbit of an astronaut that had projected himself radially outward from the shuttle? Would he eventually intersect the orbit of the shuttle at a later time? Ken ------------------------------ Date: 3 Dec 83 12:19:42-PST (Sat) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: harpo!eagle!allegra!karn @ Ucb-Vax Subject: STS-9 equator crossing reference Sun Dec 4 00:03:12.317 1983 UTC: Ascending node at 108.8 Nodal period: 89.30857 min Longitude increment: 22.683098 deg w/orbit Element set MH 12-2, epoch: Fri Dec 2 16:46:55.630 1983 UTC ------------------------------ Date: 2 Dec 83 18:01:43-PST (Fri) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: ihnp4!stolaf!umn-cs!hoyme @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: material to replace tiles? - (nf) They have developed a blanket material that is much more resistant to damage. It is currently used on the payload bay doors of the Columbia and Challenger orbiters and covers most of the white areas on Discovery. I am not aware of them replacing the higher temperature black tiles with the blankets as of yet (I could be wrong). (I was in the OPF 2 weeks ago but only saw Challenger..I was told this information by a NASA person who had been in the other bay where Discovery was being 'smoke tested', i.e. powered up for the first time at KSC). Ken Hoyme Honeywell Systems & Research Center Minneapolis ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 7 Dec 83 12:12 EST From: Charles Weems Return-Path: Subject: Shuttle sighting. To: space@mit-mc Via: UMASS-CS; 7 Dec 83 20:04-EST Two friends and I watched the shuttle fly over on Saturday the 3rd. The paper predicted it would rise at 4:32 for Boston. We first spotted it about 20 degrees up from the horizon in the NW. It appeared as a point source about mag. -3 (much brighter than Sirius but not quite as bright as Venus at its brightest). It proceeded overhead with its highest point roughly 15 degrees N of the zenith. It disappeared to the ESE. At about 45 degrees up from the ESE horizon it abruptly dimmed (to about mag 1) and remained dim until disappearance. (Dimming most likely due to entering Earth's shado, local sunset being about 4:12 EST). First sighting was at 4:33 and the shuttle was visible for about 5.5 minutes. UMass Amherst is about 60 miles West of Boston. One of my friends commented afterward that having the shuttle show up right on time had finally made him a believer in astronomical calculations.... chip weems ------------------------------ Date: 1 Dec 83 14:48:48-PST (Thu) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: harpo!floyd!clyde!akgua!sb1!sb6!bpa!burdvax!presby!seismo!rlgvax!cvl!louie @ Ucb-Vax Subject: STS-9 Media Coverage I was not at all pleased with the media coverage of the STS-9 mission. I am fortunate enough to be able to listen to the NASA audio feed being rebroadcast on the Amateur Radio bands. Not having to listen to the constant babble of network news commentators when they choose to provide any coverage at all is a major improvement. During the launch, I just turned off the sound on the TV... Wait.. this isn't net.flame. I would love to have some cable company provide me with the the straight NASA audio/video feed, it would be worth *money* to me. Louis A. Mamakos Internet: louie@cvl.arpa CSNet: louie.cvl@umcp-cs uucp: ..!{seismo,we13,mcnc}!rlgvax!cvl!louie phone: (301) 454-2946 Snail Mail: Computer Science Center - Systems Staff University of Maryland College Park, MD 20742 ------------------------------ Date: 2 Dec 83 11:23:03-PST (Fri) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: harpo!eagle!allegra!karn @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: Optical Sightings of STS-9 In-Reply-To: Article <851@inuxc.UUCP> Fantastic!! This is only two seconds early compared to my predictions based on a NORAD element set from earlier in the day. This is easily explained by the effects of the atmosphere, etc. When I compute further sightings, I'll post them. Phil ------------------------------ Date: 8 Dec 83 05:57:27 EST From: Hobbit Subject: Whatta loss To: space@MIT-MC.ARPA Well, *I* never heard W5LFL at all. All I got was an earful of ground-based hams yelling at each other to ''shut up!'' or ''Go 600 KC down!''. I suppose that living in NJ has its disadvantages what with the density of people [and therefore airwave clowns]. Unfortunately it never was made clear [via the net] that .55 was the down freq *only*, or maybe more people would have understood what was happening. KE9Q [?? -Phil?] at BTL Murray Hill, are you out there? Send me a network pointer. _H* ------- ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 09-Dec-83 0302 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #60 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts at MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 60 Today's Topics: STS-9 STS-9 element update Re: X-ray lasers Re: rocket "belt" backup recovery The story of Columbia's computer glitches More on the shuttles' computers ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 7 Dec 83 21:42:14-PST (Wed) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: harpo!eagle!hou5h!hou5g!hou5f!hou5e!hou5d!mat @ Ucb-Vax Subject: STS-9 Some statistics as reported in the 12/5/83 Aviation Week and Space Technology: ``Launch of the shuttle orbiter Columbia/Spacelab 1 mission here Nov 28 required greater vehicle maneuvering and higher thrust than any previous shuttle ascent to boost the heavy U.S./European payload on a northern trajectory ... ...Following main engine cutoff and two Orbital Manuevering System (OMS) burns to complete the launch process, Columbia was only 1.1 second off the required 5 336 second orbital period dictated by experiment requirements ... ...Vehicle liftoff weight was 4 503 095 lb., including the Spacelab 1 payload, which weighed 16.6 tons. [By way of contrast, the Saturn V launch vehicle consumed 15 tons of fuel PER SECOND. But wait ...] ... [the] two Morton Thiokol high-performance solid rocket motors provided about 6.24 million lb. of thrust at the 20 second point in the climb, with the rest provided by the three Rocketdyne space shuttle main engines operating at 104% power. ...This combination gave the Spacelab 1 vehicle at least 56 400 lb. more thrust than any previous shuttle launch. At the 20 second point in the ascent, Columbia was powered by at least 7.46 million lb. of thrust, a level only slightly below that generated by the Saturn 5 boosters during the Apollo program.'' Remember, though, that the Apollo moon rocket's payload on the final missions weighed over 103 000 lb (with a thrust from the first stage of about 7 700 000 lb.) Columbia pays for reusability and for redundancy. Still, the numbers are not bad at all. In the same issue, information about SRB ablator lining is given. In addition, it is reported that the external tank was thought to have hit in the same area that KAL 007 was downed. The report was corrected soon, with the splashdown about 1 000 miles south of Melbourne, at 56.6S and 143.2E. Mark Terribile hou5d!mat ------------------------------ Date: 7 Dec 83 7:00:37-PST (Wed) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: harpo!eagle!allegra!karn @ Ucb-Vax Subject: STS-9 element update Satellite: sts-9 Catalog number: 14523 Epoch time: 83341.54513838 Wed Dec 7 13:04:59.956 1983 UTC Element set: MH 12-7-83 Inclination: 57.0140 deg RA of node: 164.9430 deg Eccentricity: 0.0005229 Arg of perigee: 326.0820 deg Mean anomaly: 97.8970 deg Mean motion: 16.13365400 rev/day Decay rate: 0.0051403 rev/day^2 Epoch rev: 143 Semi major axis: 6615.400 km Anom period: 89.254424 min Apogee: 245.399 km Perigee: 238.481 km Beacon: 145.5500 mhz This thing is coming down so fast that if they just waited for a few days, they wouldn't have to fire retrorockets! MH 12-7-83 AOS/LOS times for the last pass this morning showed a 45 second discrepancy with respect to MH 12-5-83, a set only two days old, and in fact I noticed this in my tracking of W5LFL. With each new set, the updated times show the orbiter to be running early with respect to each old set; this means that the drag factors must be consistently too small. Phil ------------------------------ Date: 7 Dec 83 12:08:57-PST (Wed) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: hplabs!hao!kpno!astrovax!mwe @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: X-ray lasers In-Reply-To: Article <13929@sri-arpa.UUCP>, <172@dual.UUCP> The X-ray lasers currently under consideration are strictly one shot weapons. You get one pencil of radiation for each copper bar you vaporize in the explosion. Hopefully you could put more than one copper bar around each warhead, but they would all have to be locked on and tracking simultaneously. The real problem with this approach is that Russian countermeasures will almost certainly be much less expensive than the sattelites, and the arms race is after all an economic struggle... Two of the suggested couter-measures are first the obvious anti-sattelite missile, to be fired minutes before your attack, or second a sort of umbrella that deploys in front of each of your missiles as it leaves the atmosphere. The MIT defense analysis group claims that there are as many as twenty different workable counter-measures. They also claim that we don't have the required tracking and pointing technology now to make the system workable. -- Web Ewell Princeton Univ. Astrophysics {allegra,akgua,burl,cbosgd,decvax,ihnp4,kpno,princeton}!astrovax!mwe ------------------------------ Date: 08 Dec 83 09:44:36 PST (Thu) From: Martin D. Katz Return-Path: Subject: Re: rocket "belt" backup recovery To: decvax!tekgds!tektronix!orca!warner@Ucb-Vax Cc: David.Smith@Cmu-Cs-Ius, space@Mit-Mc In-Reply-To: Your message of Tuesday, 6 Dec 83 10:31:13 PST. <8312070129.AA06355@decvax.UUCP> Via: UCI; 8 Dec 83 12:03-PST ...!orca!warner: The idea of throwing objects (such as the jet pack itself) is a bit expensive to say the least. Probably not that effective in any case. As someone mentioned on the net, actually throwing something propel oneself would be a great feat without a lot of training. I would say that it is an "If all else fails" alternative. I really only suggested it because it takes advantage of what is already there. As to expense, in an emergency, the cost of the propulsion unit is trivial compared to the cost of the astronaut and suit. My original idea of a spring loaded gun shooting a magnet that is connected by a wire to the astronaut seems more direct. The use of a spring loaded gun is probably a better alternative. Shooting a magnet and wire might work except that I understand that there is little exposed ferromagnetic material on the shuttle (even with the cargo bay doors open), and I understand that an attempt is made to limit the carrying of magnets on the shuttle because some equipment is sensitive to them. Thus, there is little place for the magnet to stick. I also think that aiming might be a problem, and so several shots might be needed (thus, a spring loaded unit sounds like an advantage). Would there be a problem with the line tangling between shots? Maybe instead of a magnet, one could use a wad of very sticky putty. It might even be an epoxy precurser which would react with the surface of the tiles (much like some suit patches which have been proposed). As to tangling, maybe a wrapped fiber which is thin, yet stiff might help. Also is there any orbital mechanics that are being over looked? What would be the orbit of an astronaut that had projected himself radially outward from the shuttle? Would he eventually intersect the orbit of the shuttle at a later time? As I understand it, the orbit of an astronaut who projected himself radially outward from the shuttle would be an ellipse which (because the dV is low) is approximately that of the original orbit. The actual effect depends on the direction of the shove, the dV, the original orbit, and the position in the orbit. Since the dV (change in momentum) is small, in most cases, the astronaut's orbit would intersect the orbit of the shuttle. Unfortunately, because the orbits don't match, the shuttle might not be at the intersection point when the astronaut is. If the difference is small enough, the shuttle might have moved little enough relative to the intersection point that it will effectively still be there for the astronaut. A problem is if the astronaut matches orbit with a satellite in a slightly different orbit from the shuttle. In this case, he might fall far behind because if the satellite is in a higher orbit, its orbital period is larger. In a one orbit EVA, this could be several hundred meters. As to whether we forgot something in orbital mechanics of throwing or shooting things -- definitely. Actually, everything in orbit moves approximately in an ellipse with one focus at the center of the earth. A propulsion changes which ellipse one follows, and the motion is not straight line to the astronaut. In fact, I understand that the most efficient way to move into an orbit further out is to propel oneself tangentially to the current orbit (speeding up ones motion propels one into a higher orbit). This is why "retro rockets" work. These effects are not large for an EVA because the orbits are similar, but the astronaut will need training and might need some navigational help on a long EVA. ------------------------------ Date: 09 Dec 83 0136 PST From: Ross Finlayson Subject: The story of Columbia's computer glitches To: space@MIT-MC n088 1802 08 Dec 83 AM-SHUTTLE 2takes Shuttle Lands Safely After Computer Malfunctions By JOHN NOBLE WILFORD c. 1983 N.Y. Times News Service EDWARDS AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. - The space shuttle Columbia landed safely Thursday, but almost eight hours late, after a cascade of malfunctions struck and spread concern for the spaceship's critical navigation system. The six-man crew rode the winged spaceship, carrying the Spacelab, to a landing here at 6:47 p.m., EST. This brought to a successful conclusion the longest shuttle mission, a 10-day flight, and the first test of the European-built Spacelab as an orbital research facility. At the moment of touchdown, Mission Control told the crew: ''Columbia, welcome home. Beautiful landing!'' For a time, however, there was doubt as to when the Columbia would be coming home, Thursday or possibly a day later. The suspense built in the morning, the result of a mysterious sequence of failures. A thruster firing jolted the spaceship. A computer failed and then another computer failed. These were computers handling guidance and navigation functions. Finally, a navigation measuring system also shut down. After hours of trouble-shooting, Mission Control in Houston decided it was safe to attempt the landing, even though engineers still did not understand the source of the malfunctions. The two pilots and four scientists aboard the Columbia remained cool through the day. The crew members were John W. Young, Maj. Brewster H. Shaw Jr. of the Air Force, Dr. Owen K. Garriott, Dr. Robert A.R. Parker, Dr. Byron K. Lichtenberg and Dr. Ulf Merbold of West Germany. This is the largest crew to fly in a spacecraft. The descent from orbit apparently went without flaw, despite the earlier equipment problems. But just as Young brought the nose wheels of the Columbia to the ground, one of the suspect computers failed again. When the Columbia came to a stop, John Blaha, the spacecraft communicator at Mission Control, said to the crew: ''We've got some good news and bad news. The good news is we've got lots of beer waiting for you. The bad news is we drank it eight hours ago.'' The spaceship was originally scheduled to land at 10:58 a.m. This was a one-day extension of the mission decided on because of the Columbia's smooth performance, until the final hours, and because the spacecraft had ample reserves of fuel and oxygen. This was the first time in nine flights that a space shuttle has failed to land on time because of mechanical problems. The third flight, in 1982, had to stay aloft an extra day because of a sandstorm at its New Mexico landing base. The seventh flight, last June, stayed up a couple of extra orbits and changed landing sites because of rainy weather at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The flight of the Columbia had been remarkably free of trouble until the multitude of malfunctions struck Thursday morning. It was 5:13 a.m., EST. The Columbia was 155 miles up in orbit within radio range of a tracking station at Cape Canaveral, Fla., where the shuttle was launched Nov. 28. An automatic firing of jet thrusters in the nose rocked the spaceship. Nothing quite so jarring had ever occurred on a shuttle. Young, the commander, estimated that the force was 19 or 20 times greater than the normal force of the earth's gravity. ''It really hit the vehicle hard,'' Young reported to Mission Control. ''It was really an impact. It was probably as high a magnitude type thing as we have seen.'' At precisely the same time, the computer handling the spaceship's guidance and navigation systems shut down. This was the No. 1 general purpose computer, one of four identical computers on board that bear the burden of controlling the craft's complex systems. Any one of the four is capable of taking over for the others. In addition, a fifth, independent computer is available as a backup system. The No. 2 computer immediately took over from the troubled No. 1 computer. Five minutes later, in another thruster firing, the No. 2 computer also shut down, apparently because it became overloaded. For about one minute, the Columbia had no computer- operated guidance and navigation capability. Mission control then commanded the No. 3 computer to the rescue. It had been turned off during the problem; the No. 4 computer was handling the spaceship's environmental control systems and other tasks. Flight controllers were mystified. They ordered the No. 2 computer back on, and it worked. They tried to re-start No. 1, but it did not work. It was presumed dead. The No. 2 computer resumed its guidance and navigation duties, as the No. 3 computer was switched off; it held the vital re-entry programs and had to be kept available for any updating of those instructions. Still, no one understood the cause and nature of the malfunctions, or whether they were linked or independent problems. Mission Control decided to postpone the landing. Theoretically, it would be possible to land the shuttle without the computers but it is believed that, in practice, a human pilot could not execute commands fast enough to make the maneuvers necessary for re-entry into the earth's atmosphere. ''We need time to better understand the problem before we commit to re-entry,'' Mission Control informed the crew. Two more landing opportunities were available in the evening, at 5:17 or an orbit later at 6:47. Blaha, the spacecraft communicator at Mission Control, asked Young if he had any preference. ''I have no druthers,'' Young replied, though he noted that the later landing would give him a chance to take a nap. He had been up all night at the controls. Young had one suggestion, though. ''I recommend we close the forward R.C.S.,'' he said, referring to the reaction control system thrusters, ''and not run any more of those rascals.'' There was even a chance that the landing would have to be postponed until Friday morning. NASA officials said the crew had ample fuel and oxygen to stay in orbit at least two more days, if necessary. The crew had run out of only one item: paper for the teleprinter that brings them written operational instructions. While hundreds of engineers at Houston analyzed data from the Columbia's computers, searching for clues to the malfunctions, another gremlin struck. This time it was one of the three inertial measuring units that failed. This system senses the spaceship's acceleration, position and angle of attack to provide reference data needed by the computers in issuing commands to the propulsion system. Shaw, who had taken over the controls while Young slept, reported at about 9 a.m. ''fault signals'' from the inertial unit. Attempts to re-start the system were futile. Soon afterward, Mission Control elected to wait and attempt the landing on the final opportunity of the day. Even though the cause of the problems ''is not obvious with analysis,'' Blaha told the crew, it was decided to go ahead with ''de-orbit preps.'' Flight engineers reconfigurated the computers so that if the No. 2 machine failed again, the No. 5 computer would take over immediately and guide the ship home. The interconnections between the various machines were also adjusted to ''minimize the impact'' on them if No. 2 should fail. And so the crew closed the Columbia's cargo bay doors, sealing in the Spacelab, and prepared to fire the two orbital maneuvering engines for re-entry. Closed-circuit television from Mission Control showed the anxiety on the faces in front of the many consoles. The voices were calm, however, as were those of the crew of the Columbia. In the Columbia's 166th revolution of the earth, Gary Coen , the flight director, polled all the systems specialists in Mission Control and, at 5:14, announced the decision to ''go'' for returning to the earth as planned. Coen was chain-smoking. The crew received reassuring news 15 minutes later. Blaha, the spacecraft communicator, reported that engineers had completed their analysis of computers 2, 3 and 4. ''The data from the memory dumps checked out A-O.K.,'' he said. The Columbia was out of radio contact when it began its return. At 5:52, while over the Indian Ocean southeast of India, the craft's two orbital maneuvering engines ignited and fired two and a half minutes to slow down the craft. The Columbia began falling out of orbit. It would be almost 45 anxious minutes before Mission Control - or anyone other than the six crewmen - would know if the computers were working and navigating the Columbia through the many thruster firings and body-flap settings necessary to keep it on course. It was out of range of any tracking stations. By the time word came, the Columbia had plunged into the atmosphere over the Aleutians and was off the west coast of the United States. Mission Control began receiving tracking data at 6:31. All was well. As the spaceship glided over the desert here, its thrusters vented puffs of vapor into the blue sky. A double sonic boom rocked the desert floor. Young took over manual control and steered the craft into a sharp left turn and made a complete circle before heading in for the touchdown. He brought the Columbia in at a shallower angle than before,17 degrees instead of the usual 19 degrees, because of its heavy load, the 17-ton Spacelab. Though the touchdown was smooth, just as the nose wheels eased onto the desert runway the No. 2 computer had its second failure. But the mission was over. nyt-12-08-83 2103est ********** ------------------------------ Date: 09 Dec 83 0142 PST From: Ross Finlayson Subject: More on the shuttles' computers To: space@MIT-MC n090 1820 08 Dec 83 BC-SHUTTLE-COMPUTER By WILLIAM J. BROAD c.1983 N.Y. Times News Service NEW YORK - Balky computers have nagged the space shuttle from its first test landing in 1977, to the countdown for its maiden flight in 1981, to its most recent mission. But Thursday's failure of two of the shuttle Columbia's five main, general-purpose computers, a failure that almost kept the craft in space an extra day, was unusual because never before in the space program had more than one computer gone awry at a time. When one of the failed computers returned to service, officials of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration decided there was little danger because the four operating computers on board could back up one another, constantly checking for errors and providing reserves. In fact, any single computer could guide the ship to a safe landing, operating wing flaps and other spaceship control surfaces during re-entry. If all the computers somehow failed, it is unlikely that manual instructions from the crew could guide the shuttle through the critical re-entry phase. John W. Young, the mission commander, suggested that Thursday's two computer failures had been caused by jet thrusters that rocked the spacecraft. NASA officials passed up two opportunities to land the shuttle while teams of technicians and engineers looked for the cause of the failures. Mission control gave the crew a ''go'' for landing after engineers decided the firings did not cause them. An official of Rockwell International, the main builder of the shuttle, said the failures might have been touched off by an electrical surge. ''But there's no way to know until we analyze the flight data,'' he added. Computer No.2 was back on line soon after it failed, but Young said No.1 had apparently ''hard failed.'' He tried without success several times to restart it, and finally the control center at the Johnson Space Center in Houston told him to declare it dead. ''When you have a problem like this you can't know at the time whether it's the computer or something leading up to it,'' said Justin Fishbein, a spokesman for International Business Machines Corp., which built the main computers. In July 1977, a hint of trouble was demonstrated to flight planners in the shuttle's first test landing. A computer on board broke down just as the shuttle was being released from the Boeing747 that had carried it aloft. The remaining computers guided the shuttle down safely. The five identical computers on the shuttle are modified versions of off-the-shelf machines developed by IBM in the early1970s for use in military aircraft. Each computer consists of two55-pound boxes about the size of small suitcases. The use of extra equipment to enhance reliability is common in the space program, in military aircraft and in some other applications, such as the telephone system, where reliability is crucial. In April 1981, a computer failure delayed the maiden flight of the space shuttle Columbia for several days. Engineers at the Johnson Space Center in Houston identified the problem as a timing fault in one set of spaceship computers that disrupted communications with the backup computer. Two years later, on the maiden flight of the Challenger in April 1983, astronauts in space were awakened one night by alarms warning that a computer had broken down. The problem was quickly fixed and the computer worked perfectly through the rest of the flight. In its September flight, one of the Challenger's main computers began producing garbled data. Mission Control shut the computer down and sent it some new instructions, which corrected the problem. NASA officals say more expensive, reliable computers have sometimes been used in past programs. In the Apollo program, the command module relied primarily on one computer, with a less sophisticated model as backup. The main computer was painstakingly designed, handmade and very expensive. In contrast, the five computers in the shuttle are not the most up-to-date and are not quite so expensive, but their ability to back up one another allows less attention to be paid to making each individual machine reliable. nyt-12-08-83 2112est ********** ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 10-Dec-83 0303 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #61 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts at MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 61 Today's Topics: TV news mangling (flame!) STS-9 Landing Shuttle heard in Livermore, CA LANDING Re: TV news mangling (flame!) Get Away Specials Re: TV news mangling (flame!) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 8 Dec 83 16:14:47-PST (Thu) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: harpo!eagle!allegra!karn @ Ucb-Vax Subject: TV news mangling (flame!) Now I'm really mad. On the 6pm news, Channel 7 (WABC) here in New York ran an opening story saying that "when the Columbia astronauts tried to fire their rockets to return to earth, the Columbia shook violently and they couldn't return to earth...They'll try again to return to earth this afternoon..." Then they went on to show a little clip of Apollo 13, comparing this incident to it!! It's bad enough that the media selectively reports only the bad news. Its totally inexcusable when they distort the news beyond recognition in order to create a "life-threatening crisis" as they have in this situation. If I had not already been familiar with the situation through other means (like listening to the un-talked-over mission audio via amateur radio station WA3NAN) I would have been very worried, thinking that the OMS fuel tanks had exploded or something. Furthermore, they didn't consider it worthy to interrupt their "important scoop" on steel animal traps to carry the landing live until about 1.5 minutes before landing!! I would urge anyone who also saw this miserable piece of yellow journalism to write WABC and protest. I certainly am. Phil Karn ------------------------------ Date: 9 Dec 83 13:46:05 PST (Friday) From: hoffarth.wbst@PARC-MAXC.ARPA Subject: STS-9 Landing To: Space@MIT-MC.ARPA cc: RTCC^.wbst@PARC-MAXC.ARPA, hoffarth.wbst@PARC-MAXC.ARPA Reply-To: hoffarth.wbst@PARC-MAXC.ARPA I arrived at the East Shore Viewing area at Edwards just about 6am and was ready for the 8am landing. Upon entering the base we were informed that the landing had been delayed till 2:30pm. After having driven 2 hours I wasn't about to turn around, so I found a parking space, proped up my pillow, and went to sleep. After awaking, I decided to take a walk to see what the latest new was and to my disappointment found that the landing had been delayed again, this time till 3:52 pm. By now the desert had warmed up from its mid 30's low so I picked a spot near the north corner of the viewing area and set out my blanket. The high for the day must have gotten into the mid 70's and I noticed several people had taken their shirts off to enjoy the sun. The Air Force put on a spectacular show for us. I managed to see the following aircraft during the day: C-130 KC-135 F-16 F-111 A pair of F-15's A pair of A-7's F-5 Several NASA T-38's NASA Gulf Stream Shuttle Simulator I ended up sitting next to a real hardcore. This was his 7th landing! He was quick to point out that the two he had missed were at White Sands and Edwards (STS-8 night landing which was closed to the public). I brought my Minolta XD-11 with a noname 400mm telephoto and a 2X converter. I saw quite a few Celestron telescopes with camera mounts. As the time drew near we all turned our equiptment to the north and waited. Our first tip was a beautiful vapor trail and several seconds later it came into view. I was able to view the shuttle for almost 15 seconds before the double sonic booms. The shuttle then preformed a 309 degree head up alignment turn to place it on runway 17. There was one T-38 chase plane present. Rich ------------------------------ Date: 09 Dec 83 1649 PST From: Ted Anderson Subject: Shuttle heard in Livermore, CA To: space@MIT-MC We got an unexpected treat here in Livermore yesteray 6 minutes before Columbia's touch down. Listening to the 3PM CBS network news for the latest update, we noted that the shuttle would be comming in from the north, crossing the coast 80 miles north of San Fransisco. A quite check of a map showed that the most likely shuttle track passed almost directly over Livermore. A few calculations suggested that some 10 minutes before landing time we should get the sonic boom, if it was loud enough to hear. It was more like six or seven minutes but we heard a well defined double boom. Did any one else hear it? I'd be interested in find out how wide a track it was audible over. Also any idea how high it was over Livermore, we are about 250 nm from Edwards? ------------------------------ Date: 8 Dec 83 18:28:43-PST (Thu) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: harpo!eagle!allegra!alice!alb @ Ucb-Vax Subject: LANDING Despite a failed computer and navigation instrument, Columbia landed today, after 10 days, 7 hours, and 47 minutes in space. ------------------------------ Date: 8 Dec 83 18:28:49-PST (Thu) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: harpo!eagle!mhuxl!cbosgd!mark @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: TV news mangling (flame!) In-Reply-To: Article <2080@allegra.UUCP> On the other hand, I watched the landing live on CBS tonight, and I was impressed. The commentators both seemed to be making a point of not talking while there was direct audio coming out - they would even stop in mid sentence to let you hear. Also, the photography was spectacular! The chase plane had the shuttle in site, filling the picture, which was rock steady, for about a minute before the landing. Wow! Of course, I assume the other networks had the same picture. Did Young wait until the last minute to bring down the gear on purpose, or was that controlled by a computer? Is there some aerodynamic reason for waiting so long? Our local TV station said that "a belligerent computer refused to allow the Columbia to land". Now THAT I resent. If an athlete hurts his knee, we're all concerned about his injury. But if a computer gets fried by a jet flame, then it's the computers fault! And it's not just person vs machine - you know if the jet had fried a tile or some other part of Columbia, they'd all be concerned about Columbia. ------------------------------ Date: 8 Dec 83 4:58:58-PST (Thu) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: harpo!floyd!vax135!ukc!dgd @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Get Away Specials I would be interested to hear from anyone out in netland who is planning to fly an experiment on the Space Shuttle Get Away Special program in 1984. Regards, dgd. dgd@ukc.UUCP ...!vax135!ukc!dgd ------------------------------ Date: 9 Dec 83 23:19:25-PST (Fri) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: harpo!eagle!allegra!karn @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: TV news mangling (flame!) In-Reply-To: Article <2080@allegra.UUCP> <722@cbosgd.UUCP> I wouldn't know about the audio being talked over on the networks. I turned the TV volume down and listened instead to the un-talked-over audio being retransmitted by the club amateur radio station at the Goddard Space Flight Center. Until the local stations pre-empted their shocking steel animal trap exposes and vital football score reports to bring us their extensive coverage of the landing (all 2 minutes of it) this was the only way to follow Columbia's progress short of paying $.35/minute to the phone company. By the way, any of you out there who did listen to WA3NAN's retransmissions should definitely send them a reception report. It must have gotten very lonely running the station 24 hours a day over the past 10 days, and the only reward a bunch of volunteers can get is the satisfaction that their service was appreciated. I would certainly like to see it continue on future missions! Phil ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 11-Dec-83 0302 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #62 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts at MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 62 Today's Topics: Re: rocket "belt" backup recovery TV news mangling (flame!) Shuttle heard in Livermore, CA SHUTTLE TOILET PROBLEMS of past flights STS-9 and the Sonic Boom ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 10 December 1983 06:32 EST From: Robert Elton Maas Subject: Re: rocket "belt" backup recovery To: katz.uci-750a @ RAND-RELAY cc: SPACE @ MIT-MC The standard technique on Earth for tossing a weight on a string and reeling it back in repeatedly until you catch ahold of what you're trying for, is a fishing pole. In space you'd spin momentarily while casting, but mostly stop spinning as soon as you reached the end of the swing. The only residual spinning would be due to the sinker and hook (the part that actually kept moving). In space probably the pole wouldn't be needed, a simple reel held in your hand would get enough momentum to make the tackle drift across to your spacefish (the STSh orbiter). Perhaps we should suggest somebody actually experiment with this device on some upcoming flight? ------------------------------ Date: 10 December 1983 21:15 EST From: Robert Elton Maas Subject: TV news mangling (flame!) To: harpo!eagle!allegra!karn @ UCB-VAX cc: SPACE @ MIT-MC I agree with you, that was truly shoddy journalism. By the way, here in the SF bay area there was no mention of coverage on TV, so I turned on radio and happened upon KGO radio 810 KHz which said on their talk show they'd break early to cover the landing at 45 minutes after that hour. They indeed broke about that time and covered the landing. Several minutes later KPIX channel 5 TV finally interrupted their programming to cover the landing, only about 2 minutes before landing. The other network stations didn't start their coverage until about 1 minute before landing, but still better than the shoddy station you are forced to watch. I suggest you send a letter to the station and to the FCC advising them of the shoddy journalism you noticed and saying you're opposed to renewall of their broadcasting license until and unless they apologize and adopt a new policy. ------------------------------ Date: 10 December 1983 21:22 EST From: Robert Elton Maas Subject: Shuttle heard in Livermore, CA To: OTA @ S1-A cc: SPACE @ MIT-MC About ten minutes before landing there was a news advisory (I think it was on KGO radio; I was listening to both that and KPIX-TV.) that we in the SF bay area might hear a sonic boom two minutes before landing. I think somebody goofed, since by that time it was already within sight of EAFB, 400 miles from the bay area. ------------------------------ Date: 10-Dec-83 18:37 PST From: William Daul - Tymshare Inc. Cupertino CA Subject: SHUTTLE TOILET PROBLEMS of past flights To: SPACE@MIT-MC Message-ID: <[OFFICE-2]TYM-WBD-3P80J> Does anyone know what the toilet problem were on past flights? I had heard that NASA was very concerned about the problem...I just don't know what the problem was. Thanks, --Bi<< ------------------------------ Date: 10-Dec-83 19:01 PST From: William Daul - Tymshare Inc. Cupertino CA Subject: STS-9 and the Sonic Boom To: space@mit-mc Message-ID: <[OFFICE-2]TYM-WBD-3P81P> I just read hoffarth.wbst@PARC-MAXC's message. I drove 6 hours from the SF bay area and I couldn't afford to stay the extra 8 hours so we had to drive back. I did make it to my TV here in Palo Alto with 5 minutes to spare, to see the landing. I heard the sonic boom here in Palo Alto. It was very noticable. --Bi<< p.s. I was at the night landing. Did anyone else remember hearing the shuttle cutting thru the air just before it landed? ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 14-Dec-83 0302 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #63 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts at MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 63 Today's Topics: Getting off The Rock... ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 13 December 1983 16:40 PST From: Tom Wadlow To: space@S1-A Subject: Getting off The Rock... I've heard from the L-5 Society that the President is seriously thinking about funding a Lunar Base as well as just a space station. I've seen several space station suggestions in the pages of Aviation Week and Space Technology but nothing at all concrete about a lunar base. Does anyone know what the parameters of the proposed Lunar Base are or what time frame is being considered? Apparently, the three options under consideration are: 1) Nothing new 2) A manned space station 3) A manned space station and a Lunar base though I gather that Reagan feels that public support is small for (2) and even less for (3). I hope he is proved wrong. In any case, the decision will be made, one way or the other by Reagan and the Cabinet shortly after Christmas. More detailed information is available, but is probably not appropriate to this public forum. If you are interested, contact me directly. ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 19-Dec-83 0304 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #64 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts at MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 64 Today's Topics: Reagan space station Re: rocket "belt" backup recovery space mopeds Moons in our solar system. Shuttle problems, space cruiser Explosion During Landing Computer question - (nf) Re: Medals for cosmonauts - (nf) Re: VAFB Questions Re: VAFB Questions Re: Moons in our solar system. Columbia at KSC Re: 1984 Shuttle Plans bones Time to start writing poetry... Re: illiterate submitter's to the net - (nf) Enough of Illiterates Already! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 13 Dec 83 9:42:24-PST (Tue) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: hplabs!sytek!blk @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Reagan space station I hate to be gloomy, but does it bother anyone else to think what Reagan wants with a space station? Or maybe we should call it a base or an 'outpost'? B< ------------------------------ Date: 9 Dec 83 15:10:16-PST (Fri) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: decvax!tektronix!uw-beaver!ssc-vax!eder @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: rocket "belt" backup recovery 9 December 1983 I thought it would be useful at this point in the discussion to quote from the Flight Data File, which is the set of data the astronauts carry with them and the Houston folk refer to. One volume is the "Crew Activity Plan", which details the timelines for the crew. The particular one I am looking at is for STS-13, which includes the Solar Maximum Repair Mission. [Section 7: Notes, page 7-8] G. PAYLOADS 1. LDEF (Long Duration Exposure Facility) . . . 2. SMRM (Solar Maximum Repair Mission) The SMRM includes the SMM observatory presently in orbit and the Flight Support System (FSS) for berthing the SMM and return of the SMM to the ground if it cannot be repaired in orbit. The STS will launch from KSC and will rendezvous with the SMM observatory. . . . Retrieval and repair of the SMM will be made using the Remote Manipulator System (RMS) in conjunction with Extravehicular Activity (EVA) which includes the Manned Maneuvering Unit (MMU) operations. The first of two scheduled EVA's starts with the Orbiter stationkeeping near the SMM. The MMU crewman will fly over to the SMM, attach to one of its trunnion pins, and null the SMM rates ((comment: that means stopping any spin)). The orbiter will then close, and the SMM will be grappled by the RMS and berthed on the FSS. After berthing, the SMM is powered down and the MACS module ((the broken part)) is replaced. . . . Dani Eder Boeing Aerospace ssc-vax!eder ------------------------------ Date: 13 Dec 83 9:37:59-PST (Tue) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: hplabs!sytek!blk @ Ucb-Vax Subject: space mopeds National Public Radio has been playing a short piece about a plan for small, cheap excursion vehicles. The idea is that a space runabout could be lightly built (not having to take off/re-enter), might use off-the-shelf, inexpensive, proven components, and carry suited astronauts all over; out to a half dozen satellites for a little maintenance (or to pick up top secret data), maybe carry something up to a high orbit, perhaps even off to the moon with an oversize gas tank. What do the wise and wonderful net readers think of this idea? The man claims the buggies would only take up 10% of the cargo area! Hey, take two or three! And while you're out, grab me a beer, ok? B< ------------------------------ Date: 15 Dec 83 11:25:56-PST (Thu) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: hplabs!hao!seismo!rlgvax!cvl!umcp-cs!james @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Moons in our solar system. Please post as complete a list as you can come up with off the top of your head of planets of our solar system together with the number and names of their moons. If you can think of famous asteroids, throw them in as well. Thanks. --Jim ------------------------------ Date: 14 Dec 1983 15:50-PST From: dietz%usc-cse%USC-ECL@SRI-NIC To: space@mit-mc Subject: Shuttle problems, space cruiser Via: Usc-Cse; 14 Dec 83 16:46:13 First tiles fell off, then the SRB nozzle almost burned through, and now there's a hydrazine fire/explosion right after touchdown! Anyone want to lay odds that a shuttle is going to prang in the next couple of years? On another subject: NPR's All Things Considered (a daily evening news/current events program) had a piece a few days ago on "space cruisers". They interviewed some DOD types who talked about the Air Force's proposed one-man mini-shuttle, and some other person who is proposing to build fairly cheap "space cruisers" capable of being carried aloft by the shuttle (up to 10 per shuttle bay) and reaching any point in cislunar space. The primary mission of the space cruiser would be delivery, maintenance and repair of sattelites in GEO. Each would carry one crew member. The design sounded suspiciously like some recently proposed orbital tugs that use aerobraking in the upper atmosphere to make radical braking/orbital plane change maneuvers with low fuel expenditure. The interviewee thought that private enterprise could finance the things if NASA didn't want to, since they would not be as technically sophisticated as vehicles capable of reaching orbit from Earth. I sure hope so. An immediate spinoff of any orbital tug technology would be greatly improved prospects for further lunar exploration, since the energy needed to go to GEO from LEO is about the same as to low lunar orbit. The space cruiser and a LEO space station would compliment one another rather well. The space station would become a kind of orbital hanger/fuel-depo/hotel/warehouse, while the space cruisers would carry workers to build and maintain new generation sattelites in GEO. These new sattelites would be much larger and more complicated than current sattelites, so some repair capability would greatly reduce their cost. ------------------------------ Date: 13 Dec 83 19:14:26-PST (Tue) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: harpo!eagle!allegra!alice!alb @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Explosion During Landing NASA said today that an apparent hydrazine leak in the APU compartment ignited and exploded during the reentry of STS-9, but that the fire (or its effects) was not noticed until the day after landing. ------------------------------ Date: 12 Dec 83 15:43:08-PST (Mon) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: pur-ee!isrnix!akp @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Computer question - (nf) What caliber of computer do the shuttles use? Are they comparable to VAXen? PDP-11? Cyber 855? Apple? Relax, be vague. -- Allan Pratt ...decvax!ihnp4!iuvax!isrnix!akp ------------------------------ Date: 12 Dec 83 19:32:29-PST (Mon) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: pur-ee!uiucdcs!uiuccsb!eich @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: Medals for cosmonauts - (nf) But the Mercury astronauts did get Distinguished Service Medals from the Commander-in-chief. See Tom Wolfe's The Right Stuff. Which of our armed forces were engaging in infighting, secretiveness, etc. against one another in their pre-NASA space programs? The Manned Rocket program was run by the Air Force (formerly Army Air Corps). Starting with the X-1 in the late 40's through the X-15 all military space research and testing was done at Edwards under Air Force auspices. The Navy and Marines contributed pilots, but nothing else as far as I know. What secretiveness there was aimed not at other military branches, but at the Soviets. Moreover, the successor to the X-15, the X-20 Dyna-Soar, was moving along nicely until the wave of Sputnik hysteria, which really crested when the Soviets orbited a man before John Glenn, rendered the winged rocket approach political unfeasible, and gave NASA carte blanch to (literally, as it turned out) go for the moon. McNamara canned the X-20 just as Chuck Yeager was taking off in his final NF104 test flight. No convincing technical reason was given that I know of; politics dominated. Brendan Eich uiucdcs!uiuccsb!eich ------------------------------ Date: 15 Dec 83 21:18:45-PST (Thu) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: hplabs!hao!denelcor!lmc @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: VAFB Questions Part of the reason for the Vandenburg launch site is security; the major reason is that it is the only place in the US where a high-inclination launch can be performed without crossing some other countries' air space or a sizeable city before orbit is achieved (i.e., over the water). A lot of reconn satellites require high inclinations to cover the desired high latitudes. Lyle McElhaney ...(hao,nbires,brl-bmd,csu-cs)!denelcor!lmc (303) 337-7900 x261 ------------------------------ Date: 15 Dec 83 12:21:04-PST (Thu) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: harpo!floyd!clyde!akgua!sb1!sb6!bpa!burdvax!psuvax!lewis @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: VAFB Questions I think Vandenberg was chosen because of certain safety criteria--NASA doesn't want the SRB's or external tank to come down on land. Apparently, a launch from Vandenberg allows a greater range of orbital inclinations, which would be desirable for military payloads such as reconnaisance sattellites. -Jim Lewis psuvax!lewis ------------------------------ Date: 16 Dec 83 15:09:28-PST (Fri) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: hplabs!hao!seismo!rlgvax!cvl!umcp-cs!eneevax!spam @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: Moons in our solar system. In-Reply-To: Article <4441@umcp-cs.UUCP> Planets: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Pluto, Neptune Moons: Luna, Phobos, Deimos, Japetus, Europa, Io, Ganymede, Titan Asteroid: Ceres ------------------------------ Date: 16 Dec 83 12:36:07-PST (Fri) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: harpo!eagle!allegra!alice!alb @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Columbia at KSC The Columbia landed atop a 747 at KSC today, where technicians will begin examining all the problems that occurred during STS-9. ------------------------------ Date: 14 Dec 83 10:54:49-PST (Wed) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: harpo!floyd!clyde!akgua!sb1!sb6!bpa!burdvax!psuvax!rznowski @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: 1984 Shuttle Plans About the astronaut testing the jet pack.... This seems very uncharacteristic of NASA. What happens if the jet pack stops working when the astronaut is 300 feet from the shuttle and still drifting?? (I myself would prefer to have a tether attached to me for safety reasons.) Remember the Spacesuit problems...... Stephen Roznowski (rznowski@psuvax1) P.S. I guess it the jet pack fails, the astronaut could always test to see if Newton's third law really works. (By throwing the jet pack) ------------------------------ Date: Sun 18 Dec 83 16:07:49-PST From: William "Chops" Westfield Subject: bones To: space@S1-A.ARPA a544 13-Dec-83 03:42 BC-SPACEHEALTH-12-13 EDITORS: If you are interested in obtaining a drawing to accompany the following story, please call (312) 321-2034 between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. Central Time, weekdays. By Brent Staples (c) 1983 Chicago Sun-Times (Independent Press Service) A U.S. space station by 1990, moon colonies by the middle 1990s, and a manned expedition to Mars by the year 2000. This is the timetable NASA would like to follow. As ready as technology is for these ventures, it's clear the human body is not. Though the flight of Space Shuttle 9 presented no threat to the astronauts' health, National Aeronautic and Space Administration biomedical researchers say an extended space flight would leave the traveler's body in terrible condition. He would develop kidney stones. Calcium deposits would line his blood vessels, raising the specter of stroke, heart disease and other complications. The traveler's bones would be so severely weakened that upon returning to Earth, even minor stress could precipitate fractures of the feet, legs, hips and spinal column. All these complications would arise from severe calcium loss, a problem caused by the effect of weightlessness on bone-manufacturing cells. The first hint of the calcium loss came in 1965 with the relatively brief flight of Gemini VII. Though Alan Lovell and Frank Borman were in orbit for only two weeks, post-flight analysis of their body wastes showed that the vital mineral had begun to leave their bodies. In 1974, the 84-day mission of Skylab IV furnished the first estimates of the calcium loss that could be expected after an extended stay in space. Two of the three astronauts showed significant losses - one of them lost 7 percent of his total body calcium. On the basis of the Skylab figures, NASA's biomedical researchers estimated that in 1 1/2 years - the time needed for a round-trip to Mars - the body could be robbed of up to 40 percent of one of its most vital minerals, causing a serious decrease in bone density. NASA has been groping for a solution to the calcium-loss problem for the better part of two decades. Dr. Victor Schneider, chief research scientist for NASA's bed-rest project, says NASA has kept subjects in bed as long as 36 weeks in search of a means for preventing calcium loss. Schneider's experiments have included treating subjects with a half-dozen calcium and phosphorous-related compounds - with no success. Calcium and calcium-luring hormones were ineffective and massive doses of phosphorous caused leukemia in some patients. It has been demonstrated elsewhere that estrogen forestalls bone loss in post-menopausal women, but there is no equivalent hormonal treatment for men. Schneider is optimistic about an ongoing study in which osteoporotic women are being given fluoride, a mineral known to induce bone growth in adults. But results of that study may not be known for five years. Comparisons of bed-rest subjects and astronauts in space indicate that exercise may be a slight hedge against calcium loss. The greatest calcium loss among the Skylab IV crew was 7 percent, but earthbound bed-rest subjects who remained in bed for the same period lost 11 percent of their total body calcium. Don Young, a senior researcher with NASA's biomedical research team, suspects that the space crew's isometric exercises, bike rides and rigorous research schedule made the difference. Treatment with electrical impulses has induced growth of bone cells in children afflicted by non-union bone, a disease in which breaks and fractures are extremely slow in healing. This suggests that electrical current might help in treating calcium loss in astronauts, but Young is skeptical. ''Those studies were done on young people who have a lot of growth potential,'' Young said. ''But we at NASA are working with men and women, many of whom will be in their 40s and older. It is unlikely that the procedure would work with them. ''We don't know whether bone loss would reach a plateau and stop, or whether it would continue throughout the duration of an extended flight,'' said Young. ''If we use the 7 percent bone-loss figure from Skylab missions and extrapolate forward to six or seven months or a year in space, we begin to see that the astronauts would lose enough bone to be at serious risk of fractures and breaks. Assuming that the loss continued, eventually the men would risk injury from undergoing even non-traumatic activities.'' Even if replacing lost calcium was a viable alternative - which it is not - there are other effects to be considered. ''When that much calcium is mobilized in the body, other complications arise. The kidneys develop stones from trying to pass the calcium out of the body, and the calcium would deposit itself in places throughout the body, most likely in the veins and arteries, presenting another series of problems,'' said Young. Nor do possibilities seem hopeful for recovery after return to Earth. The Skylab IV crew had not regained its pre-flight calcium levels after 95 days on Earth, at which time NASA ceased to keep records on the crew members. Animal studies have compounded concern about whether the effect is permanent. Animals still show diminished levels of the mineral three to four years after calcium loss was experimentally induced. Thus, astronauts who took off now on an extended space voyage almost certainly would develop problems like osteoporosis. END nyt-12-13-83 0633est *************** ------- ------------------------------ Date: 16 Dec 83 6:31:45-PST (Fri) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: hplabs!hpda!fortune!amd70!decwrl!daemon @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Time to start writing poetry... From: Burns.Fisher, MRO3-1/E13, 231-4108 I heard on National Public Radio this morning that it is now official: NASA will be carrying some "communicators", i.e. poets, newsfolk, writers, etc. into orbit in 1985. Anyone have confirmation or more info? Burns Fisher {decvax or ucbvax or allegra}!decwrl!rhea!dvinci!fisher ------------------------------ Date: 16 Dec 83 12:14:05-PST (Fri) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: harpo!floyd!clyde!akgua!gatech!ofut @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: illiterate submitter's to the net - (nf) -- So some people aren't so hot at spelling, and don't care to use a -- spelling checker. So what? I understood what he meant, didn't you? -- Besides, if you want to nit-pick, you mispelled "grammar" in your -- third paragraph. It's a sad fact that computer scientists are known as the worst abusers of the english language both in mistakes and writing style. Let's not criticise those who make valid criticisms of us. If someone offers valid critical remarks we should take them to heart, even if we've heard them before. -- Jeff Offutt School of ICS, Georgia Tech, Atlanta GA CSNet: Ofut @ GATech ARPA: Ofut.GATech @ Csnet-Relay uucp: ...!{akgua,allegra,rlgvax,sb1,unmvax,ulysses,ut-sally}!gatech!ofut ------------------------------ Date: 17 Dec 83 6:42:21-PST (Sat) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: harpo!eagle!allegra!alice!alb @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Enough of Illiterates Already! In-Reply-To: Article <142@pucc-k> Enough! Enough! This is a newsgroup for discussions, bulletins, and queries on the space shuttle, not for flames about someone who doesn't write like you like him to! If you want to blast someone for that, do it in net.flame, where it doesn't bother anyone. ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 20-Dec-83 0302 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #65 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts at MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 65 Today's Topics: Re: VAFB Questions Re: shuttle posters - (nf) Space Travel Space Art & Tourists in Space Space Logs Re: illiterate submitter's to the net - (nf) SPACE Digest V4 #64 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 16 Dec 83 10:54:30-PST (Fri) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: decvax!tektronix!uw-beaver!ssc-vax!eder @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: VAFB Questions The reason for two launch sites for the Shuttle is safety. The Shuttle is not allowed to fly over inhabited areas. This limits launches from KSC to low inclinations (up to 57 degrees). Any more northerly would cause the vehicle to overfly Newfoundland (I think). Launches from Vandenberg will be southerly, over the Pacific. That will allow polar type orbits. As for landing, the Maps and Charts book I have (from the set of data the astronauts carry with them) show Vandenberg, Oxnard, LAX, Long Beach, and other fields as potential emergency landing sites, based on having a long enough runway, >10,000 feet. Dani Eder Boeing Aerospace ------------------------------ Date: 15 Dec 83 20:39:57-PST (Thu) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: hplabs!hao!seismo!philabs!linus!security!genrad!wjh12!n44a!ima!haddock!stevel @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: shuttle posters - (nf) There is a series of three posters called "Working in Space" sold by the goverment. I am told they have other ones too. The one I have is number wal-106. The address to write to is Superintendent of Documents U.S. Goverment Printing Office Washington, D.C. 20402 Steve Ludlum, decvax!yale-co!ima!stevel, {ucbvax|ihnp4}!cbosgd!ima!stevel ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 19 Dec 83 06:30 PST From: JCastro.es@PARC-MAXC.ARPA Subject: Space Travel To: space@Mit-Mc.ARPA cc: JCastro.es@PARC-MAXC.ARPA If I wanted to be a passangers in future space shuttle trips not as a poet, writer or anything else other then just a person taking a trip. Now if I wanted to do this who would I have to write to ? Or can I just go to my local airport and buy a ticket.. ------------------------------ Date: 19 Dec 83 1113 PST From: Ron Goldman Subject: Space Art & Tourists in Space To: space@MIT-MC a015 2238 15 Dec 83 PM-Space Art, Bjt,430 Artist Plans High-Altitude 'Light Show' CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (AP) - Taking the sky for his canvas and colored gases for his brush, an artist plans to paint the heavens next spring in a three-minute high-altitude light show - with a little help from the space shuttle. The work is the product of six years of effort by Joseph Davis, a fellow at the Center for Advanced Visual Studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Davis' plan involves creating artificial versions of the Northern Lights with the use of a number of components including an electron gun, gas and a radio frequency shield. ''I became aware of some experiments on auroral phenomenon over the past 30 years. So with the help of a large amount of data and people here, I figured what specific power and light relationship we would need to do it from the space shuttle,'' Davis said Thursday. Davis, 33, has paid the National Aeronautics and Space Administration $10,000 to carry a 200-pound, five-cubic-foot capsule that will open at the right moment and begin discharging into the ionosphere. He's dubbed the project ''New Wave Ruby Falls'' after bumper stickers he saw as a child urging people to ''See Ruby Falls,'' a cave at Lookout Mountain in Chattanooga, Tenn. ''I began in about 1977 to negotiate with the NASA Space Transportation Systems headquarters in Washington,'' Davis said. ''They didn't really know what to think at first.'' What colors will be visible in the sky will depend on the kind of gases and the amount of energy, Davis said. ''We expect to do a sequence of 60 discharges per minute, one per second, to create an aurora,'' Davis said. ''They will stretch over several horizons. The shuttle's trajectory will affect how we see it on earth.'' Davis said he expects the aurora to last about 190 seconds. ''But if we're really lucky, and if there are enough particles in the ionosphere, it will last a lot longer. It all depends on the hour of the day.'' Davis said when he first began talking with NASA about his project, it was mainly talks over the telephone. But he said things became serious once some money was put on the table. ''Then it was a matter of submitting plans. So I sent them so many proposals that they couldn't just get rid of me,'' Davis said. ''They found some problems, but they never totally rejected anything.'' In fact, Davis was so involved in negotiations that he helped NASA develop its policy for dealing with parties interested in sending up payloads aboard the shuttle. ''We could go up as early as January, that date was given to us a while ago,'' he said. ''But we have a lot of work to do, and a spring date is more realistic.'' ap-ny-12-16 0139EST *************** a026 0009 16 Dec 83 PM-Space Passengers,460 Tourists in Space a Possiblity by 1985, NASA Says By WARREN E. LEARY AP Science Writer WASHINGTON (AP) - In a couple of years, a space shuttle could be orbiting Earth with an odd passenger who won't be flying the craft or conducting an experiment. Essentially, that passenger will be a tourist. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration said Thursday it is finishing plans to send into space the first person who is neither an astronaut nor a scientist. The first flight of a shuttle with a space tourist aboard could come as soon as 1985, said NASA Administrator James M. Beggs. NASA expects to publish regulations in the Federal Register next week on carrying non-astronaut passengers aboard the shuttle. Before the proposed rules become official, there will be a 60-day comment period followed by another two months to incorporate any changes resulting from the public comments, the agency said. ''I hope that by the spring of next year, we will begin the selection process for the first passenger,'' Beggs said after a Washington Press Club speech. Beggs said the first non-scientist, non-astronaut aboard the shuttle probably would be an author, artist, or journalist. In the jargon of NASA, such passengers would be called Citizen Observers-Participants. ''Astronauts who've been in space say the pictures they've brought back don't do justice to what they've seen,'' Beggs said. ''Perhaps we need someone who can better describe the experience.'' Beggs said he expected the first such flight within three years, but added that it may come ''as early as 1985.'' The citizen observers selected will go through a three-month training period before the flight, he said. The regulations provide for putting these persons on the NASA payroll during training so that candidates would not be restricted because of their personal financial condition. This is to make sure that access to space is not restricted to the wealthy, he added. Beggs said passengers would be more than sightseers. Although not expected to do major experiments, the travelers would have some duties aboard the shuttle. ''We will try to make practical use of them in assisting the astronauts,'' he said, ''even if that means being assigned from time to time to clean the galley.'' The move to eventually get some ordinary people into space follows the recommendation of a task force of NASA's Advisory Council. In its report to the agency, the task force said ''NASA should take the next step in opening space flight to all people by flying observers...'' The proposed regulations would establish an evaluation committee within NASA to manage the selection process and set up basic guidelines for applicants, including health and training criteria. Applicants would be evaluated by a NASA-designated outside review panel, but the agency would retain authority to make the final selection. ap-ny-12-16 0308EST *************** ------------------------------ Date: Monday, 19 December 1983 20:50:51 EST From: Kevin.Dowling@CMU-RI-ROVER To: space@mit-mc Subject: Space Logs Message-ID: <1983.12.20.1.29.52.Kevin.Dowling@CMU-RI-ROVER> At a recent convention I picked up some older volumes of the TRW Space Log for a quarter. It is essentially a publication by the PR department of TRW, but it is packed with information on Spacecraft details (satellites, manned vehicles etc) Several issues have comprehensive lists of ALL space launches up to that point with this information on each: (Name, international designation, country, launch data: date, site and launch vehicle, weight, orbital data: period, perigee, apogee, inclination, and status ) I called and later wrote TRW and got several back issues, the most spectacular of which is the latest with Shuttle information (25th anniversary of space exploration, NASA) I guess it would be accurate to describe the Space Log as "a record of mankind's accomplishments in space". They only had the last few years still in stock, however, and didn't have the older issues. Does anyone in net-land know where I could get even older issues specifically ones from the sixties? (they weren't really annual as there was a 70/71 issue and a 78/79 issue). I'd appreciate any pointers or direct information. Thanks. Kevin Dowling Arpanet: nivek@cmu-ri-rover Snail : Robotics Institute Schenley Park Pittsburgh, PA 15213 MaBell : (412) 578-8830 [office] ------------------------------ Date: 19 Dec 83 1:02:58-PST (Mon) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: hplabs!hpda!fortune!rpw3 @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: illiterate submitter's to the net - (nf) #R:tekecs:-334100:fortune:2600002:000:317 fortune!rpw3 Dec 19 00:47:00 1983 i deli-bur-ate-ly uses sometime this hear 'stroph mark (') 'tween made up words like RAM's an' ROM's 'cause it jes' don' look rite without 'em sometimes, y'here? But i likes to lern.. so tell me... wha's a plural of: O/S ? TV ? LOX ? EVA ? UNIX ? MOS ? VAX ? "Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera!" [The King...] ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 20 Dec 1983 03:05 EST Message-ID: From: MINSKY%MIT-OZ@MIT-MC.ARPA To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC Cc: SPACE@MIT-MC Subject: SPACE Digest V4 #64 In-reply-to: Msg of 19 Dec 1983 06:04-EST from Ted Anderson I wonder if anything can be done about NASA and the press in general, re. the gravity-calcium-"I guess Man just isn't going to be able to exist in space" syndrome. Presumably, all this goes away with a centrifigual-tethered crew-quarters attached to any space station or mission. The public should be informed that although zero-G is promising, it isn't the end of the space age if people are not perfectly suited to it. Hmmm. Well, has any poor astronaut been made to spend several months in some slowly rotating environment? It would serve me right if, somehow, there turned out to be bad effects from mild-to-moderate Coriolis forces. Seems unlikely, but. . . ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 21-Dec-83 0302 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #66 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts at MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 66 Today's Topics: Space shuttle computers Lunar Base Re: Space Shuttle Communications Info Space Shuttle Communications Info ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 20 Dec 1983 1328-EST From: James R. Paradis Subject: Space shuttle computers To: space at MIT-MC As I remember, from hearing all the discussion about shuttle computers at the time of STS-1, the on-board computers are supposed to be equivalent to IBM 360's. They are, in fact, manufactured by IBM. ------- ------------------------------ Date: 20 Dec 1983 15:22:19 PST From: METH@USC-ISI Subject: Lunar Base To: SPACE@MIT-MC cc: METH@USC-ISI FROM AW&ST, DECEMBER 19, 1983, PAGE 17. Initiative calling for the next US space goal to be a lunar base -- not an orbiting space station -- is being led by Edwin (Buzz) Aldrin, who was lunar module pilot on Apollo 11, the first lunar landing, and George Mueller, former NASA associate administrator for manned space flight. They are trying to coordinate support for a lunar goal among aerospace organizations and the White House. A lunar base would force expansion of US transport capability to geosynchronous orbit and the Moon, providing more defense, commercial, and scientific user options than a single low-orbit station, Aldrin believes. "The solar system's most desireable space station already has six American flags on it -- let's use it and not turn it over to the Soviets," he said. ------- ------------------------------ Date: 19 Dec 83 16:54:39-PST (Mon) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: harpo!eagle!allegra!karn @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: Space Shuttle Communications Info In-Reply-To: Article <2123@allegra.UUCP> Oops, make that Transactions on COMMUNICATIONS. ------------------------------ Date: 19 Dec 83 16:51:30-PST (Mon) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: harpo!eagle!allegra!karn @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Space Shuttle Communications Info An increasing number of people have been asking for details on the communications systems in use on the shuttle. I came across a back issue of the IEEE Transactions on Computers that is devoted to this topic: November 1978, Part I. Phil ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 22-Dec-83 0302 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #67 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts at MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 67 Today's Topics: NASA to announce opportunity for civilians on Space Shuttle. Private Space Enterprise Re: USENET L5 Chapter News Script? 'von-neumann probes' and clarke's sequel to 2001 Re: Columbia at KSC ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 19 Dec 83 11:22:35-PST (Mon) To: space @ Mit-Mc Subject: NASA to announce opportunity for civilians on Space Shuttle. Forwarded-From: Ed Featherston HL01-1/P06 225-5241 From : MOSES::FOSTER Organization : Digital Equipment Corp. Subj: NASA to announce opportunity for civilians on Space Shuttle. Yes, I heard the same broadcast on NPR. I think they said that NASA will issue a formal "Announcement of Opportunity" next spring some time. (UUCP) {decvax, ucbvax, allegra}!decwrl!rhea!moses!foster (ARPA) decwrl!rhea!moses!foster@Berkeley decwrl!rhea!moses!foster@SU-Shasta ------------------------------ Date: 19 Dec 83 3:09:07-PST (Mon) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: sun!qubix!idi!kiessig @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Private Space Enterprise I read an article some time ago about "Starstruck, Inc" - one of the first companies in the free enterprise space race. It was founded by Mike Scott (a former Apple Computer president). They hope to steal away some commercial satellite launching business from NASA. They're based in Redwood City (south of San Francisco), and have as a major investor Steve Wozniak, among others. Has anyone heard anything about these people recently? I know they were scheduled to try a test launch this fall off of Point Conception, using a Dolphin Rocket. Rick Kiessig decvax!sun!idi!kiessig or ucbvax!sun!idi!kiessig ------------------------------ Date: 19 Dec 83 8:55:30-PST (Mon) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: decvax!wivax!apollo!eric @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: USENET L5 Chapter News For some reason, I have not seen a message describing L5, its constituency, its goals, its requirements for membership, etc. on the net. I caught a little of the early discussion of starting a USENET chapter, but nowhere have I seen a description of the organization. So, if I missed it, would someone please mail me the information, or, if it hasn't been posted (in the last month or two), then please take this opportunity to tell everyone what L5 is! It sounds interesting. (Does "L5" stand for something?) Eric Peters (...decvax!wivax!apollo!eric) ------------------------------ Date: Wednesday, 21 December 1983 09:20:06 EST From: Howard.Gayle@CMU-CS-G To: Space@MIT-MC Subject: Script? Message-ID: <1983.12.13.18.1.12.Howard.Gayle@CMU-CS-G> The following caption appears under a photograph on page 23 of the 12 December 1983 Aviation Week & Space Technology. The photograph, taken from a television monitor, shows Owen Garriott with his hands over his eyes, Robert Parker with his hands over his ears, and Brewster Shaw with his hands over his mouth. "White House Edict Annoys Shuttle Participants "Johnson Space Center---Shuttle managers, astronauts and many Europeans in the Spacelab program here were annoyed by instructions from the White House on how the live television discussion among President Reagan, German Chancellor Helmut Kohl and the Spacelab 1 crew was to be conducted Dec. 5. The White House wrote a detailed script that was transmitted to Columbia to insure the crew would know what to say and when to say it. The White House edict drawing the strongest criticism was that only payload specialists Byron Lichtenberg, Ulf Merbold and mission commander John Young were to appear in the Spacelab on camera with the President. Banished crewmembers Owen Garriott, Robert Parker and USAF Maj. Brewster Shaw expressed their view on the matter by staging a monkey `hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil' scene on the middeck during a television test before Reagan and Kohl appeared. Shuttle management appealed the language of the script and the decision to exclude half the crew. The appeal was rejected. Some Europeans expressed concern the language was weighted toward Germany's contribution to Spacelab at the expense of the other ESA states." No wonder they ran out of teleprinter paper. ------------------------------ Date: 21 Dec 1983 1012-PST From: WATERMAN%USC-ECL@SRI-NIC Subject: 'von-neumann probes' and clarke's sequel to 2001 To: space@MIT-MC Some time ago, i read 2010, clarke's sequel to 2001. He uses the 'von-neumann-probe' idea as the denoument for the odyssey. I thought that his 2010 was a base and anachronistic trivialization almost as rank as the first star-dreck film where the great,exalted mystery of the universe is reduced to an andy wharhol soup-can! Anyway, Clarke goes on and on about these g.d. 'von-neumann' probes as the meaning of the obelisks etc. and he makes all kinds of anachronistic use of terms like 'teselation automata' etc. jeeeeezuuuuuz hhhhhhh chiiiiirrrriiiist ! It sounded like going into the 'science section' of a used bookstore and choking on the dust of some dusty tome describing advanced buggy-whip-technology. Probably any 'really' advanced stage of space-time-differentiation has already dispensed with the explicit use of 'technology' (the 2001 movie handled that well).... ...flame out of fuel.... ------------------------------ Date: 20 Dec 83 10:58:54-PST (Tue) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: ihnp4!ihldt!stewart @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: Columbia at KSC In-Reply-To: Article <2402@alice.UUCP> > The Columbia landed atop a 747 at KSC today, where technicians > will begin examining all the problems that occurred during STS-9. I always wondered how they got the shuttle on top of the 747, but I didn't know they could land with such precision!! I think they should take it down before examining it, though. Bob Stewart ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 23-Dec-83 0303 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #68 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts at MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 68 Today's Topics: Re: Medals for cosmonauts - (nf) Space, cable tv. give me enough rope... Re: illiterate submitter's to the net - (nf) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 17 Dec 83 19:30:26-PST (Sat) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: pur-ee!uiucdcs!uiuccsb!eich @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: Medals for cosmonauts - (nf) #R:sri-arpa:-1412400:uiuccsb:15700009:000:342 uiuccsb!eich Dec 17 10:12:00 1983 >>/***** uiuccsb:net.space / denelcor!lmc / 8:25 pm Dec 16, 1983 */ >>The Army claimed that they could have launched a satellite any time during >>1957, but congress awarded that to the Navy and their Vanguard program. Was that Army project called MOUSE? Can anyone recommend references on the details? Brendan Eich uiucdcs!uiuccsb!eich ------------------------------ Date: 19 Dec 83 13:17:09-PST (Mon) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: harpo!eagle!mhuxl!cbosgd!cbdkc1!pyuxmm!pyuxnn!pyuxi!pyuxhh!kurt @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Space, cable tv. < < Perhapps one day a cable tv co in ny-nj area will promise a 24 hour < broadcast (without anoying anouncers) of whatever nasa is sending out, as a part of there service < the day they do, im sold. -- Kurt Gluck HP 1c273a Bell Laboratories 6 Corporate Place Piscataway NJ, 08854 ..!pyuxi!pyuxhh!kurt (201)-561-7100 x2023 or hp x2023 ------------------------------ Date: 22 Dec 1983 1019-PST From: Richard M. King Subject: give me enough rope... To: space@KESTREL I've spent my whole life in a slowly rotating environment and it doesn't seem to have done me too much harm so far. The only question is how MUCH rotation we can stand. If 2RPM is too fast we get a longer tether (but NOT a stronger one) and try 1RPM. A 3.7 KM tether will give you 1G at 1RPM, with cable length inversely proportional to the square of the rotation speed. This cable hardly seems too long, in that missions are now on the drawing boards with cables tens of KM long. This 1G/1rpm system requires a delta-V of 100 MPS, but it can be done by something like an ion rocket since low gravity won't hurt people quickly. One problem for LEO is variations in the strength of the pseudogravity due to two factors; the direct effects of the tidal force, and the indirect effect that the tidal force makes this bolo spin fastest exactly when the tides reinforce the pseudogravity. This effect is exacerbated by slow rotation rates. I will give further calculations on this later. ------- ------------------------------ Date: 21 Dec 83 6:26:33-PST (Wed) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: ihnp4!ihuxs!okie @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: illiterate submitter's to the net - (nf) In-Reply-To: Article <2049@fortune.UUCP> I use the "n" key in net.flame to avoid this silly argument. I don't like to use the "n" key in net.columbia to avoid the *same* silly argument. Take the hint, guys, and MOVE OUT! You're not welcome here. Now on to something designated for this newsgroup... Has anyone heard what the final determination of cause was for the flames the shuttle experienced during landing? I've heard not a word since the statements made immediately after the landing. Thanks, B.K. Cobb ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 24-Dec-83 0302 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #69 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts at MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 69 Today's Topics: STS-10 to Land at KSC GEO vs lunar delta-vees Shuttle Fire, SRB explosive bolts 1984 STS schedule Want to Ride on the Shuttle? Debris, shuttle woes tied (FYI) calcium loss ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 21 Dec 83 17:14:02-PST (Wed) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: harpo!eagle!allegra!alice!alb @ Ucb-Vax Subject: STS-10 to Land at KSC NASA said today that STS-10 will be the first mission to land on the 15,000 foot concrete runway at KSC. ------------------------------ Date: 22 Dec 83 21:18:20-PST (Thu) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: harpo!eagle!allegra!karn @ Ucb-Vax Subject: GEO vs lunar delta-vees Someone mentioned the relative delta-vee requirements needed to get to geostationary orbit as compared to to the moon. I did some research and calculations to get some real numbers. Apollo 11 (a representative moon trip) started with a 192 x 190.6 km parking orbit. Trans-lunar injection required 3182 m/sec from the S-IVB, while lunar orbit insertion required only 889.2 m/sec. However, landing required 2,065 m/sec and liftoff 1,850; you can see the advantage of the separate LM approach. The return to earth required 999.4 m/sec. Here's the numbers for a typical geostationary satellite launch from the shuttle. Assume a 28.5 deg inclination 300 x 300 km parking orbit. The PAM (payload assist module) perigee kick motor produces about 2579.7 m/sec to put the spacecraft into a 23.5 deg elliptical transfer orbit. About 170 m/sec of this burn is used to reduce the inclination by about 5 degrees. (I don't know why they do this, it should be more efficient to change the plane out at apogee.) At one of the following apogees, the kick motor on the satellite itself produces 1879 m/sec. Most of this circularizes the orbit at geostationary altitude, while 231.6 m/sec goes toward making the inclination zero. Now when comparing these figures you have to take into account the different initial parking orbits, but this is enough to give the general idea. Note the big difference, though, between getting to lunar orbit and getting to the lunar surface. 192 km LEO to lunar orbit: 4071.2 m/sec 192 km LEO to lunar surface: 6136.2 m/sec 300 km LEO to GEO: 4458.7 m/sec Phil ------------------------------ Date: 23 Dec 1983 7:23-PST From: dietz%usc-cse%USC-ECL@SRI-NIC To: space@mit-mc Subject: Shuttle Fire, SRB explosive bolts Via: Usc-Cse; 23 Dec 83 07:38:20 AW&ST reported that the shuttle fire was caused by a hydrazine leak somewhere in the aft compartment near two APUs. The leak could have occured in space, where the hydrazine would have frozen as it leaked out. Upon returning to the atmosphere the hydrazine could have vaporized and ignited. The APUs' hydrazine valves are spring loaded and shut themselves automatically when their power failed (this was some minutes after landing). Heat buildup caused some components in the fire area to explode. Another interesting thing happened on this flight. Parts of the devices that thrust the SRB's away from the shuttle after separation were found embedded in the SRB casings. There was concern about possible damage to the shuttle's thermal protection tiles. And, I imagine, possible catastrophic punctures of the external tank on future flights. Boom! ------------------------------ Date: Friday, 23 December 1983 13:17:19 EST From: Howard.Gayle@CMU-CS-G To: Space@MIT-MC Subject: 1984 STS schedule Message-ID: <1983.12.23.18.16.41.Howard.Gayle@CMU-CS-G> Launch ID Crew Days Orbiter Mission ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 30 Jan 1984 41-B 5 8 Ch Manned maneuvering unit, rendezvous balloon deployment, Palapa B-2, Westar 6, SPAS 4 Apr 1984 41-C 5 6 Ch Long-duration exposure facility, Solar Maximum repair 4 Jun 1984 41-D 6 7 Di Office of Aeronautics and Space Technology Satellite OAST-1, Large format camera, Syncom 4-1, Anik 14 Jul 1984 41-E Ch DOD (classified) 9 Aug 1984 41-F 5 7 Di Shuttle-pointed autonomous research tool for astronomy (Spartan-1), SBS-D, Telstar 3C, Syncom 4-2 30 Aug 1984 41-G 5 10 Co Office of Space and Terrestrial Application Satellite OSTA-3, Earth Radiation Budget Satellite (ERBS) 28 Sep 1984 41-H Ch DOD (classified) 24 Oct 1984 51-A 6 6 Di Materials Science Lab (MSL-1), Anik, Gas Bridge (fluid transfer experiment) 21 Nov 1984 51-B 7 7 Ch Spacelab 3 17 Dec 1984 51-C 5 7 Di TDRS-B, MSL-2 Ch = Challenger, Co = Columbia, Di = Discovery. Mission ID code: first digit is last digit of fiscal year; second digit is 1 for KSC, 2 for Vandenberg; letter designates mission within fiscal year. This convention is going to be a problem in fiscal 1994, or if there are more than 26 launches from one site in one fiscal year. Information from Aviation Week and Space Technology, 19 December 1983, page 57. ------------------------------ Date: 23 Dec 1983 14:16-EST Sender: GLAUER@BBNF Subject: Want to Ride on the Shuttle? From: GLAUER@BBNF To: space@MC Message-ID: <[BBNF]23-Dec-83 14:16:28.GLAUER> From Aviation Space (Winter 1983): How to select the first passengers for space flight has been the task of NASA's "Informal Task Force for the Study of Issues in Selecting Private Citizens for Space Shuttle Flight." Just the possibility of an opportunity to join in the experience of space flight has generated a multitude of requests for passage, however, it appears that only three to four passengers will be included in flights during the mid to late 1980's. Consistent with the purposes outlined in the Space Act, NASA is being encouraged to open space flight by including observers who could: o provide a comprehensive visual mission history, as well as real time reports, o write an interpretative history covering the scientific, technical, and institutional achievements, and/or o teach on the science, engineering, and biological principles' integral to manned space flight. The Task Force has identified potential pitfalls in selecting passengers for the limited number of slots. The inclusion of civilians should not be a publicity device, but rather a means of expanding the level and types of expertise available to the space program. Some Task Force members prefer opening the selection process to all Americans with a national lottery. "Winners" would then be screened by NASA for those most appropriate to the rigors of training and flight. Others favor a purpose-oriented approach with a peer group selection process leading to a list of individuals highly skilled in their fields. The Task Force wrestled with the criteria that should govern the suitability of all potential Shuttle passengers. Tentatively, candidates should be: o highly motivated to ride on the Shuttle, o able to undergo one hundred hours of training over two months, o able to pass the medical examination designed to minimize the possibility of a hazard to the mission or the individual, o adaptable to the living situation and working relationships required by mission conditions, and o willing to accept an appointment as a NASA employee during the time of mission-related activities with employee rights and responsibilities. The Task Force recommends that NASA begin with a minimum program until the demands of payload specialists, foreign astronauts, and astronaut training are finalized. The determinations on who will be eligible and how they will be selected is still open, but it seems clear that interest in Shuttle flight, and the potential gain from expanding the ranks of flyers will lead to including passengers on upcoming Shuttle voyages. ------------------------------ Date: 23-Dec-83 11:42 PST From: William Daul - Tymshare Inc. Cupertino CA Subject: Debris, shuttle woes tied (FYI) To: space-enthusiasts@mit-mc Cc: DIA.TYM@OFFICE-2, PAMV.TYM@OFFICE-2, KIRK.TYM@OFFICE-2 Cc: DEV.TYM@OFFICE-2, NCD3.TYM@OFFICE-2, weeks@ames-vmsb Message-ID: <[OFFICE-2]TYM-WBD-3S69K> From the PENISULA TIMES TRIBUNE (thursday, Dec. 22) LOS ANGELES -- A sliver of solder and another speck of junk floating in weightlessness apparently short-circuited computer circuits on the space shuttle Columbia, delaying its landing for eight hours Dec. 8, according to IBM, the manufacturer of the computers. ------------------------------ Date: 23 December 1983 21:29 est From: Dehn at MIT-MULTICS (Joseph W. Dehn III) Subject: calcium loss To: space at MIT-MC Is there anything in the research on calcium loss in zero-G to indicate the long term effects of low-G (Moon or Mars)? Does anyone have any idea whether there is some threshold value of gravity above which the loss is insignificant, or whether for each planet the loss would just continue until some specific amount has been lost? ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 25-Dec-83 0303 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #70 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts at MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 70 Today's Topics: So you want to be an astronaut? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 22 Dec 83 20:52:41-PST (Thu) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: harpo!eagle!mhuxl!cbosgd!mark @ Ucb-Vax Subject: So you want to be an astronaut? In-Reply-To: Article <756@cbosgd.UUCP> Well, a few weeks ago, a note was posted to this newsgroup saying that mission specialists were being sought. It arrived on cbosgd on Monday, Nov. 28. Well, being your typical red blooded all-american boy, and happening to have some of the qualifications, I thought "Wow! Why not?" I figured I'd never make it, but I knew I had to try. So I called directory assistance in Washington DC and asked for the number for NASA's personnel dept. I called that number and asked for the application form, then mentioned that I was interested in the mission specialist position. The woman gave me a phone number in Houston that was handling that program. I called the Houston number. A woman answered the phone who sounded like she was used to dealing with winos. No doubt she had gotten a whole lot of calls. I asked for the application form. She pointed out that it had to be postmarked by Dec. 1st (Thursday). I said to send it and I'd get it to them immediately. Well, Thursday's mail came and the application was still not there. I figured "well, I'll send a resume and cover letter to get the postmark by the first, and then send in the application when I got it. But I didn't have an address to send it to. So I called the same phone number, and got the same woman. She would not give me an address. She said if the application itself was not postmarked by the first of December, NASA could not be bothered. She indicated that it takes them several days to assemble the package (must be more than just a 4 page application form), and that I had had 6 months to request the application and file it. I said I'd just found out about it on Monday, which didn't interest her. She said they had been advertising heavily, implying I was some kind of ostrich if I had not seen their ads. I asked where they advertised, she said "radio, television, newspapers, magazines, everywhere". End of conversation. To date, I have not received an application packet in the mail. I ask, has ANYONE reading this message seen any ad in the last 7 months about this program? Where? By the way, I asked about physical requirements, since I understand they are pretty strict (nobody with a weak heart is likely to survive the acceleration, for example). Seems my asthma would not be a problem, and you can even need glasses if your vision is 20/100 or better, provided it can be corrected to 20/20. (My father in law could have been a Navy pilot 30 years ago, had he not needed his glasses.) Mark ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 26-Dec-83 0302 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #71 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts at MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 71 Today's Topics: What is L5 ? answers ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 20 Dec 83 15:44:29-PST (Tue) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: decvax!microsoft!fluke!ssc-vax!eder @ Ucb-Vax Subject: What is L5 ? answers WHAT IS THE L5 SOCIETY? (reprinted with permission from the L5 Society 1984 Calendar) The L5 Society is a non-profit, tax exempt organization, formed with the purpose of promoting space development. Since 1975, the organization has been active in many areas advocating broader use of the tremendous amount of resources available throughout the Solar System for the benefit of all people. To achieve the goals of this organization, much more is needed beyond technical achievements. The socio-politico-economic struture requires reorientation. The expansion of civilization into space is dependant on social attitudes, political atmosphere, and economic realities. The L5 Society seeks to favorably alter these conditions toward the goal of space development. TECHNOLOGICAL PROGRESS Although the L5 Society is not currently engaged in space research, the organization does issue grants to support ongoing projects. One of the projects supported is the SpaceWatch Camera Project, which is managed through the University of Arizona. This project will couple a computer imaging device to a high power telescope to be placed at Kitt Peak National Observatory. The telescope will be used to search the skies for "Earth approaching asteroids", small objects in space that cross the orbit of the Earth at some point during their orbit about the Sun. Preliminary identifications of such objects with the SpaceWatch Camera could lead to a sample return mission from one of these asteroids. The relative proximity of "Earth approaching asteroids" could translate into shorter mission times and an earlier utilization of extra-terrestrial resources than would be possible with the use of "main belt asteroids". The L5 Society has contributed to other projects, including closed environment life support systems, and a study considering the building of satellites to provide energy to Earth. The Society also supports the work of the Citizen's Advisory Council on National Space Policy, a small committee of aerospace engineers, lawyers, enterpreneurs, and advocates working to design a coherent space program plan for the next several years to come. POLITICAL ATMOSPHERE The L5 Society participates in the legislative process to the fullest extent allowable under Federal law. Both through the Washington Representation Committee and the growing metwork of individuals around the country we have lobbied in support of space projects such as the Space Shuttle fifth Orbiter option, the Galileo mission to Jupiter, continued funding of space solar power systems research, and, most recently, the establishment of a permanently-staffed space station in low Earth orbit. The L5 Society has supported projects for both the sciences and applications, always with a goal of a balanced space program. Perhaps the most notable of the L5 Society lobbying efforts was the fight against the "Moon Treaty of 1979". This agreement would have effectively prevented the entry of private enterprise into space operations. Quick action on the part of the L5 Society persuaded influential members of the Senate, and eventually President Carter, not to sign or ratify the treaty. Although several countries' leaders have signed the agreement, none have ratified it. To this day, it remains effectively blocked. ECONOMIC REALITIES With the successful flights of the Shuttle, billed as the "space truck", much emphasis is now being centered on commercial operations. Experimentation onboard the Shuttle ranging from pharmaceutical manuf- acturing to semiconductor crystal growth to new metal alloys will begin to identify the processes that will return a profit on the investment. As this becomes a reality, the demand for space transportation will substantially increase. Combining these alomost-certainties with President Reagan's recently announced willingness to allow private interest to operate conventional (i.e. expendable) launch vehicles, we at the L5 Society believe that the economic feasibilities of space enterprises are nearly defined. We also believe that many profitable ventures are yet to be discovered; and, that this increased economic activity in space will manifest itself on Earth even more profoundly than the establishment of a colony at Plymouth Rock. SOCIAL EXPANSION The societal realities of today's world are at the top of the list of stumbling blocks to large scale space development. The L5 Society, through its network of over 100 local chapters, reaches out to people all over the world to teach them about space. We show them what space technology has done to change their lives--from improved communications and weather forecasting, to improved agricultural management techniques. We show them what space technology could be doing for them. The L5 Society knows that its biggest job is educating--politicians, engineers, technicians, doctors, lawyers, mothers, fathers, janitors, secretaries and accountants, corporation presidents and mailroom personnel. We go beyond educational exhibits in shopping malls and presentations to local groups--both of which are worthwhile and important activities. We go into the schools, to inspire the youth of our nation to help us succeed. We have sponsored musical performances in New York City, and we attended the US Festival in California. We assisted the instrumental group 'The Ventures' in the production of a special commemorative album for the 25th Anniversary of NASA. We do these things because we know that social change is affected bymany different factors, particularly through the arts. [The origin of the name of the Society is gravitational. A French mathematician named Lagrange once found some solutions to the still generally unsolved "three-body problem". This is the problem of how to describe the motion of three mutually attracting objects gravitationally. The solutions he discovered were for the special case where one of the objects was small compared to the other two, and all three objects maintain the same relative positions. There are five such postions, called L1 through L5 after Lagrange. The first three are unstable, meaning if you move a little away from it, you will tend to move further. This can be thought of as a gravitational 'hill'. The other two, L4 and L5, are stable. They are located in the same orbit as the Moon, but sixty degrees behind and ahead of it respectively. At one time it was proposed to build a colony at L5, hence the name of the Society. It is still a purpose of the Society to disband at a mass membership meeting held at L5. ] [If you are interested in more information, there are a number of sources you can contact. The office of the L5 Society is: 1060 E. Elm Street, Tucson Arizona, 85719 USA There is a USENET L5 mailing list, which is handled by Don Coleman at ...!dcdwest!sdccs6!iy120 If you have technical queries, you can contact me via USENET or directly. I like answering questions. Dani Eder Boeing Aerospace USENET: !uw-beaver!ssc-vax!eder DIRECT: (206)773-2923 Mail Stop 8A-88 POB 3999, Seattle WA 98124] ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 27-Dec-83 0302 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #72 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts at MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 72 Today's Topics: GEO vs lunar delta-vees ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 26 Dec 1983 10:41-PST From: dietz%usc-cse%USC-ECL@SRI-NIC To: space@mit-mc Cc: randvax!decvax!harpo!presby!cmcl2!allegra!karn%Usc-Cse%USC-ECL@SRI-NIC Subject: GEO vs lunar delta-vees Via: Usc-Cse; 26 Dec 83 12:38:37 Of course I meant going to lunar orbit, not to the lunar surface. One figure you didn't mention is the delta-vee for returning from GEO. Retrofire to put you into an atmosphere skimming orbit for aerobraking will take about as much delta-vee as the orbit circularization burn (maybe a little more). Perhaps a better (albeit more time consuming) maneuver would be to boost into an elongated orbit that passed near the moon, which would then put the vehicle onto an earth-intersecting orbit. I read somewhere that someone (Krafft Ehricke?) has proposed landing payloads on the moon by sliding them on a flat strip of lunar soil (sifted to remove rocks). Energy would be dissipated by heating and accelerating the loose sand-like material, which would be smoothed over before the next landing. Orbital velocity at the lunar surface is around 1650 m/sec, so this sounds semi-plausible. Deceleration at 10 gee's would mean a strip 14 km long. A more refined scheme could use a solid aluminum strip for magnetic flight. The incoming vehicle would have magnets for repulsive magnetic levitation. The vehicle could be decelerated by eddy currents in the strip, by coils in the strip (which could deliver usable power to a launch system) or by shooting gas derived from lunar soil (oxygen or argon) at the front of the vehicle. After being decelerated to less than 100 m/sec the vehicle would use wheels. Such a scheme could also make rocket lift-off from the lunar surface more efficient by eliminating the need for the rocket to support the mass of the vehicle against lunar gravity -- all thrust would go into increasing the orbital velocity of the vehicle. Of course, the mass of the magnets would probably negate any advantage gained. ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 28-Dec-83 0303 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #73 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts at MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 73 Today's Topics: Deuterium on Venus ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 27 Dec 1983 6:20-PST From: dietz%usc-cse%USC-ECL@SRI-NIC To: space@mit-mc Subject: Deuterium on Venus Via: Usc-Cse; 27 Dec 83 07:36:19 One of the more intriguing discoveries in space exploration was the finding from spectrometer on a atmospheric probe of the Pioneer Venus spacecraft that deuterium is greatly enriched in Venus's atmosphere. The deuterium/hydrogen-1 ratio is 100 times larger on Venus than on Earth; the hydrogen there is nearly 2% deuterium (by weight). Apparently Venus has been acting for millions of years as an isotope separator. Sulfuric acid, water and other hydrogen compounds are dissociated at high altitude by solar UV radiation. Hydrogen-1 atoms escape much faster than deuterium atoms because of their lower mass and consequent higher average velocity at any given temperature. Apart from making deuterium extraction on Venus attractive, this enrichment may make terraforming Venus much easier. Deuterium undergoes fusion reactions much more easily than hydrogen-1. There was some concern back during WW-2 at Los Alamos that the first atomic bomb would start self-propagating nuclear reactions in the earth's atmosphere between deuterium and nitrogen. This didn't occur (of course); perhaps it would have if there was more deuterium. We can begin terraforming Venus by dropping a nuclear bomb into its atmosphere. If the deuterium reactions are self sustaining most of the atmosphere will be blown off into space. We'd probably want to blow up Venus when it's behind the sun to avoid flash/EMP effects on Earth. All this depends on whether deuterium/nitrogen reactions can be made self sustaining. The difficulties encountered in building the H-bomb suggest that it's not possible (too bad). If so, we can build a mammoth fusion bomb on Venus using native deuterium. This would make lots of neutrons, though, so it would have to be detonated high in the atmosphere to avoid inducing radioactivity in the crust. ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 29-Dec-83 0302 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #74 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts at MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 74 Today's Topics: Re: Deuterium on Venus Terraforming Venus superluminal objects ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 28 Dec 1983 8:22:30 PST From: Subject: Re: Deuterium on Venus To: Dietz%usc-cse@Usc-Ecl, space@MIT-MC I was somewhat jolted by your suggestion that we terraform Venus by nuking it. If possible, I'd rather see it terraformed to a livable pre-holocaust earth likeness. Seriously, 1. Do we need to remove all the deuterium before building an atmosphere ? 2. I would expect the explosion to leave a vacuum (and no planet). Are you expecting to find a planet with some atmosphere ? Lars Poulsen ------------------------------ Date: 28 Dec 1983 9:59-PST From: dietz%usc-cse%USC-ECL@SRI-NIC To: lars%ACC@SRI-NIC Cc: space@mit-mc Subject: Terraforming Venus Via: Usc-Cse; 28 Dec 83 11:36:17 I was somewhat jolted by your suggestion that we terraform Venus by nuking it. If possible, I'd rather see it terraformed to a livable pre-holocaust earth likeness. The first step to terraforming Venus is to remove at least 98% of the atmosphere. After that you can create a biosphere. Just cooling the atmosphere won't work unless you can find some way to lock up most of the CO2 in carbonate rocks. Seriously, 1. Do we need to remove all the deuterium before building an atmosphere ? 2. I would expect the explosion to leave a vacuum (and no planet). Are you expecting to find a planet with some atmosphere ? Too much deuterium is poisonous; deuterium can foul up the action of enzymes it's incorporated in. I don't think detonating Venus's atmosphere could fragment the planet. The gravitational self-energy of a uniform sphere is -(.6)G(m^2)/r; for Venus this is on the order of 2x10^39 joules. This is the energy equivalent of about 3.3x10^18 kg of matter. Assuming Venus started with an ocean 1 km deep covering the entire surface there will be on the order of 10^16 kg of deuterium in the atmosphere; fusion reactions will convert only a small fraction of this mass to energy, and most of that energy will be radiated away. Will Venus have an atmosphere afterwards? Probably not. On the other hand, the upper crust of Venus would probably be severely fractured; seismic waves could deposit lots of energy inside the planet. Expect massive volcanism and outgassing. With luck, lots of hydrogen will be emitted, saving the terraformers the trouble of importing ice from comets. ------------------------------ Date: 28 Dec 83 1214 PST From: Ron Goldman Subject: superluminal objects To: space@MIT-MC n068 1715 26 Dec 83 BC-SPEED 2takes (ScienceTimes) By WALTER SULLIVAN c.1983 N.Y. Times News Service NEW YORK - Perhaps the most fundamental theoretical underpinning of modern physics is the conviction that nothing moves faster than light. But now observers have reported sighting objects far out in space that appear to be moving at more than 15 times the speed of light. One of those objects, as reported recently in the journal Nature, appears to be picking up speed. Various explanations have been proposed. All leave some basic questions unanswered, though physicists remain unshaken in their belief that the speed limit holds throughout the universe. One theory relates to the so-called ''motion of effects,'' such as the moving point of closure on a closing pair of shears, or the moving spot of light cast by a flashlight on a distant wall. The speed limit of light does not apply to the motion of effects, as it does to the motion of material things. Such an effect has been seen by astronomers on the Earth observing the illumination of a large, spherical shell of gas by an exploding star in its center. Light from the explosion reaches all parts of the shell at the same time, but the part nearest the Earth is first seen to flare up, since light from that region has the least distance to travel to the Earth. As this area fades, light from the surrounding regions begins to arrive at the Earth, creating the appearance of an illuminated ring. The ring may appear to expand faster than the speed of light until the light from the outer edge arrives. But radio astronomy has revealed far more distant objects that also appear to be traveling faster than light. These so-called superluminal objects do not fit readily into the motion-of-effects theory. The favored explanation is that they have been ejected at almost, but not quite, the speed of light and are coming almost, but not quite, straight at the Earth. According to one calculation, they must be aimed no more than eight degrees away from a line pointing directly toward the Earth. But rest assured, these objects are so far away that, even if they were to make eight-degree midcourse corrections, they would not hit the Earth for a billion years or more. If superluminals are actually traveling at such high speed and almost straight toward the Earth, their apparent speed should be enormously exaggerated. To see how this could happen, suppose a Moon-gazer on the Earth sees the flash of a rocket being fired from the darkened portion of a new Moon. Then, a fraction of a second later, the gazer sees a point of light, the rocket itself, far to one side of the Moon. It would appear to have traveled there almost instantaneously. This could be explained if the rocket was fired at almost the speed of light, 186,000 miles per second, and aimed at a point close to the Earth. To an observer who is unaware that the rocket is heading toward the Earth at extremely high speed, it would appear from the Earth to have moved off to the side of the Moon almost instantly. The actual flight of the rocket, at close to the speed of light, would be only a short distance behind the light waves from the flash of its liftoff from the Moon. Thus the light carrying the image of the rocket long after it was launched would arrive almost at the same instant as that from its launching. The implication is an incredibly fast traveling speed. But the actual speed is slower. Clearly, you cannot see the rocket's liftoff the moment it occurs, since the light from its blast must travel 240,000 miles to the Earth. So, the time elapsing between liftoff and the moment you see the rocket far out in space is greater than it seems. Therefore, the actual speed is less. At least seven superluminal objects or chains of objects have been charted by networks of radio telescopes in this country and Europe. All the superluminal objects appear to be embedded in jets radiating from quasars. Quasars are celestial objects that emit immense quantities of light waves or radio waves, which are longer waves in the spectrum. Some of the brightest quasars, or radio galaxies, eject jets in opposite directions, but the superluminals seem to be coming from quasars with one jet only. Astronomers suspect one-jet quasars really have two jets, but one of them is aimed almost directly at the Earth. The other, going in the opposite direction, would be moving away from us so close to the speed of light that it could not be seen. For some reason, these jets do not spread out like the jet from a hose, but instead remain narrow over distances of thousands of light-years. A problem no less deep is what generates the jets in the first place. It is widely suspected that the energy source, or ''engine,'' in the heart of the quasar is a rapidly rotating object of enormous density, such as a black hole, in which matter is so concentrated that nothing can escape it. The jets are thought to be directed along the spin axis of this object. The single jets tend to curve, and the superluminal objects seem to be traveling along the same curved paths. As reported in Nature, however, a fourth object has now appeared in a procession of three previously tracked superluminal features flying out from the quasar 3C-345. This, unlike the others, seems to be moving in a straight line. The manner in which such objects are ejected has been mapped with increasing detail as technology improves. The circular region of intense radio emission, defining the quasar, develops a bulge, which then pinches off as a separate structure and moves away. The observing method, known as long baseline interferometry, requires several stations to observe the target area simultaneously, using atomic clocks to keep a highly precise record of arrival times of the radio waves. The recordings can then be meshed to produce a map of the source region. The more widely separated the antennas, the greater the detail that can be detected. The apparently straight path of the newly found superluminal object does not lead back into the core of the parent quasar. If its source were indeed the quasar core, it must have flown a sharp curve before it was observed. According to Dr. Marshall H. Cohen of the California Institute of Technology, who has played a leading role in the observations, the paths flown by the first three superluminals may not be curved as much as they appear. If they are coming almost straight at the Earth, the curvature, which may be a response to some form of pressure along the path of the jet, could appear exaggerated. The apparent velocity of the fast-moving components depends on the assumption that they are extremely far from the Earth. That assumption, in turn, is based on the shifting of quasar light waves toward the red end of the spectrum, taken by most astronomers as evidence that they are receding at large fractions of the speed of light and therefore must be very far away in the expanding universe. Cohen's co-authors in one of the two reports in the Nature article were J.A. Biretta and S.C. Unwin of Cal Tech, and I.I.K. Pauliny-Toth of the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy in Bonn. The other paper, by R.L. Moore and A.C.S. Readhead of Cal Tech, and L. Baath of Onsala, Sweden, describes an apparent acceleration of the newest component from 6.8 to 11.2 times the speed of light. In a recent telephone interview, however, Cohen pointed out that an appearance of acceleration could be produced, without any actual increase in velocity, if the source's spiraling trajectory increased its motion across the line of sight from the earth. nyt-12-26-83 2010est *************** ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 30-Dec-83 0303 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #75 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts at MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 75 Today's Topics: Medals for cosmonauts - (nf) --> Army could have beat Sputnik? Re: 1984 Shuttle Plans - (nf) Re: give me enough rope... superluminal objects Re: space mopeds Shuttle Tourists ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 30 December 1983 02:23 EST From: Robert Elton Maas Subject: Medals for cosmonauts - (nf) --> Army could have beat Sputnik? To: pur-ee!uiucdcs!uiuccsb!eich @ UCB-VAX cc: SPACE @ MIT-MC From what I heard, the story may be essentially true. Our government underestimated the USSR space program, and took a glamorous course instead of a crash effort. Sputnik jarred them into a crash effort and they eventually switched from what they had been working on to the other one (I forget which is which; Vanguard or Redstone?) which worked nicely although the payload was tiny. (Pardon tardy reply, I've been without terminal for 1.5 weeks until today.) ------------------------------ Date: 21 Dec 83 18:02:32-PST (Wed) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: ihnp4!stolaf!umn-cs!hoyme @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: 1984 Shuttle Plans - (nf) #R:alice:-237400:umn-cs:3800007:000:737 umn-cs!hoyme Dec 21 17:59:00 1983 Wait a minute...If the jet pack fails we can assume the shuttle could manuever to pick up the stranded astronaut. Think before you write. The jet pack user will have to 'fly' in patterns that could make a tether very ackward. To recover the Solar Max the astronaut will have to first start spinning to match the satillite, attach himself to it and then despin so the manipulator arm can grab it. A tether would not work. Also, a tether might have to be too long since there may be situations where the jet pack will be used to get away from the environment around the orbiter which is filled with contaminents due to the thrusters (and the toilet for that matter). Ken Hoyme Honeywell Systems and Research Center Minneapolis,MN ------------------------------ Date: 27 Dec 83 10:57:18-PST (Tue) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: harpo!floyd!whuxle!pyuxll!abnjh!usenet @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: give me enough rope... In-Reply-To: Article <14880@sri-arpa.UUCP> Regarding the effects of tides on spin-induced simulated gravity -- Slowly varying gravity doesn't bother most people for more than a day or so. The effects of the most common form are called 'sea-sickness' and usually pass away after a period of acclimatization. Rick Thomas ihnp4!abnji!rbt ------------------------------ Date: 30 December 1983 04:34 EST From: Robert Elton Maas Subject: superluminal objects To: ARG @ SU-AI cc: SPACE @ MIT-MC If most of the energy emitted by a jet is sent in essentially the "forward" direction, that is nearly the same direction as the jet itself is moving, which is reasonable for some methods of emitting energy, then jets not aimed nearly directly at us wouldn't emit energy we could see, thus a high percentage of jets would show the superluminal effect compared to if we sampled all directions of jets fairly. Thus I'm not much surprised that we've observed many of these things, and I accept that they are all sub-cee-speed objects in reality until proven otherwise. One test would be blueshift in the jet compared to the quasar itself. If the jets are observed only at radio wavelengths, spectral lines might be difficult to identify. Anybody have info about blueshift or not blueshift of apparent-superluminal quasar jets? ------------------------------ Date: 21 Dec 83 17:11:38-PST (Wed) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: decvax!duke!ucf-cs!giles @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: space mopeds In-Reply-To: Article flairvax.290, <340@sytek.UUCP> [warning -- the first 30 lines are heavy satire, followed ] [by a reasonable proposition. So don't hit 'q' too fast. ] I have a couple questions for the folks at NPR: 1: How do the astronauts know where they are? Do they by roadmaps at the 267 km alt. Shell Station? 2: Speaking of Shell Stations, what do they do when nature calls? After all, these are not short interorbital hops (if they where, why not move the entire shuttle?) 3: How do they communicate with the Shuttle? A Radio-Shack walkie-talkie? 4: Will the space moped have an air-conditioner? heater? 5: What happens if they have a flat? (O.K. -- my sarcasm is getting too severe, I will get somewhat more serious.) 6: Who do they change direction? Tilt the thing (of course, with gyroscopes ...) 7: Are there rest stations out there, so the astronauts can get off and stretch? ----------------------------------------------------------------- Now that that is out of my system, time for a rational comment: Unless they want to send crews out with very little life-support equipment, it seems that any 'moped' is still going to be *very* large. As a quick estimate, I would say at least the size of a Gemini capsule. Now I know that the equipment size has shrunk, but human nature is to put more stuff into the newly opened space, resulting in no net change. Since Gemini was before my time, I don't have a good handle on how many you can fit into a shuttle cargo bay, but it can't be that many. Of course, once a *permament* space station is up, then I think several such 'mopeds' moored to the station is an excellent idea. One possibility would be to build a few more shuttles, leave off the tiles and wings, put in a long rod (for the control jets that are on the ends of the wings), or possibily replace the wings (in space) with a wire mesh platform, and upgrade it so that it can handle longer duration missions. Launch it, remove the main engines for use in launching the next 'moped', and trim the thing. Wa La (sp?) -- a proved, spaceworthy, somewhat economical 'space moped'. Or, for that proposed lunar base, retain the main engines and ET. I recall seeing (somewhere) that the energy required for LEO to Lunar orbit is approximately the same. (or was that to Mars?) Anyway, we once again have a deep-space manned vehicle which is derived from the shuttle, and hence somewhat economical & proven. Finally, we would have the shuttle and the station/'mopeds' complimenting each other. For higher orbit satellites, the shuttle takes the satellite to the station, sticks it on the 'loading dock', the 'moped' loads it up, and deposits it in the correct orbit. (say, up to geosync). Then we wouldn't have successful operations/dead patients like the TDRSS/Booster combination. (Remember the beautiful launch on Overnight?). Either way, it would certainly not be a very small vehicle if it is to have man-rating. Bruce Giles --------------------------------------------- UUCP: decvax!ucf-cs!giles cs-net: giles@ucf ARPA: giles.ucf-cs@Rand-Relay Snail: University of Central Florida Dept of Math, POB 26000 Orlando Fl 32816 --------------------------------------------- ------------------------------ Date: 27 Dec 83 10:22:39-PST (Tue) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: ihnp4!ixhte!sjacks @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Shuttle Tourists Clean the galley? Heck for a ride I'd wax the decks, wash the windows, throw out the trash.... How about it NASA, do you need a SHAME (Shuttle Housework And Maintenance Engineer)? Steve Jacks AT&T Bell Laboratories ..!ihnp4!ixhte!sjacks ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 31-Dec-83 0303 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #76 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts at MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 76 Today's Topics: Re: calcium loss Re: Space Art & Tourists in Space Halley Manual Astronaut Candidates ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 28 Dec 83 18:42:53-PST (Wed) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: decvax!linus!utzoo!henry @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: calcium loss In-Reply-To: Article <14905@sri-arpa.UUCP> I think the fast answer about calcium loss in low-G (not free-fall) environments is "insufficient data". It is very hard to simulate a low-G environment realistically on Earth. -- Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology {allegra,ihnp4,linus,decvax}!utzoo!henry ------------------------------ Date: 28 Dec 83 18:41:03-PST (Wed) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: decvax!linus!utzoo!henry @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: Space Art & Tourists in Space In-Reply-To: Article <14765@sri-arpa.UUCP>, <795@cvl.UUCP> Before you object to the "artificial Northern Lights" notion on the grounds of environmental damage, please explain what environmental damage it will do that will persist for longer than a few minutes. The amounts of material that will be put into the upper atmosphere by such a project are utterly negligible compared to what's already there; it doesn't matter which particular material you are thinking of. The only reason there is any noticeable effect at all is because the material ejected from the shuttle is concentrated in one small area. It doesn't stay that way. -- Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology {allegra,ihnp4,linus,decvax}!utzoo!henry ------------------------------ Date: 29 Dec 83 5:47:59-PST (Thu) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: ihnp4!inuxc!fred @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Halley Manual I received my copy of International Halley Watch Amateur Observers' Manual for Scientific Comet Studies by Stephen J. Edberg last night. It is well written and has a wealth of information reguarding comet observation techniques. Topics include: Visual Observations Photography Astrometry Spectroscopic Observations Photoelectric Photometry Meteor Observations The book is essential for anyone expecting to contribute to the International Halley Watch program but even if you have only a casual interest the Ephemeris and star charts give nighly positions of the comet from June 1985 through May 1987. The book can be purchased from Sky Publishing Corporation 49 Bay State Road Cambridge, Mass 02238-1290 Cost $9.95 Fred Mendenhall ------------------------------ Date: 29 Dec 83 7:45:11-PST (Thu) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: ihnp4!inuxc!inuxh!slb @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Astronaut Candidates The following is now out of date, but is provided for those planning to apply in the future. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Announcement No. 3ACS-83 for Mission Specialist and Pilot Astronaut Candidates SPACE SHUTTLE DESCRIPTION The successful flights of the Space Shuttle have convincingly demonstrated that we have entered a new era of space transportation. In the 1980's routine operations and expanded experimental investigations in space will be commonplace. The Space Shuttle, its gross liftoff weight exceeding four million pounds, is launched like a rocket and maneuvers into Earth orbit where it performs its assigned missions lasting up to 30 days and then returns to Earth in a manner similar to that of the X-15 research vehicle. The reusable Shuttle spacecraft is then readied for another flight with new payloads and flight crew. The crew normally consists of four people - the commander, the pilot, and two mission specialists. On occasion, additional mission specialist or payload specialists may be assigned to bring the crew complement to seven people. The commander, the pilot, and the mission specialists are NASA astronauts; the payload specialists will be nominated by payload sponsors and will be responsible for the operation of specific payload equipment where their individual skills or expertise are needed. The Shuttle is capable of performing a variety of orbital missions including deployment and retrieval of satellites, service and refurbishment of existing satellites, and operation of specialized laboratories including astronomy, earth sciences, space processing, and manufacturing. These missions may also include supporting the development and servicing of a permanent space station. The Space Shuttle also provides a staging capability for using other rocket sources to inject satellites into higher orbits than can be achieved by the Shuttle itself. Potential users include both Government and private industries from the United States and abroad. ASTRONAUT CANDIDATE PROGRAM By this announcement, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) plans to establish rosters from which mission specialist and pilot astronaut candidates are expected to be selected during 1984. Twelve new candidates are expected to be selected; six mission specialists and six pilots. The final numbers will depend on mission plans and operational needs. NASA plans to establish new rosters and select astronaut candidates on an annual basis. Applicants are being sought from both the military services and the general public, with separate rosters established for military and civilian candidates. All positions will be located at the Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, and will involve a 1-year training and evaluation program. The period for submitting civilian applications under this announcement is OCTOBER 1 THROUGH DECEMBER 1, 1983. No applications from civilians will be accepted after December 1, 1983. Each military service will establish its own closing date for applications. MISSION SPECIALIST ASTRONAUT Mission specialist astronauts, working with the commander and pilot, have overall responsibility for the coordination of Shuttle operations in the areas of crew activity planning, consumables usage, and other Shuttle activities affecting experiment operations. Thus, mission specialists are required to have a detailed knowledge of the Shuttle systems as well as the operational characteristics, mission requirements and objectives, and supporting systems and equipment for each of the experiments that will be conducted on their assigned mission. Mission specialists will participate in extravehicular activities, perform special payload handling or maintenance operations using a remote manipulator system, and assist in specific experiment operation at the discretion of the experiment sponsor. PILOT ASTRONAUT Space Shuttle pilot astronauts serve as both Shuttle commanders and pilots. During flight, the Shuttle commander has onboard responsibility for the space vehicle, crew, mission success, and safety of flight. The Shuttle pilot assists the commander in controlling and operating the Shuttle. In addition, Shuttle pilots may deploy and retrieve payloads using a remote manipulator system, participate in extravehicular activities, and support specific payload operations where appropriate. GENERAL CANDIDATE INFORMATION Selected applicants will join the Johnson Space Center and be assigned to the Astronaut Office. They will undergo a 1-year training and evaluation period during which they will be placed in responsible technical or scientific positions allowing them to contribute substantially to the Shuttle Program and continue to work in their scientific or technical fields, where feasible, while under evaluation. They will also participate in the basic astronaut training program which is designed to develop knowledge and skills required for formal mission training upon selection for flight assignments. Pilot astronaut candidates will be required to maintain proficiency in NASA aircraft during their candidate period. Applicants should be aware that selection as an astronaut candidate does not ensure selection as an astronaut. Final selection as an astronaut will depend upon satisfactory completion of the 1-year training and evaluation period. Civilian candidates who successfully complete the training and evaluation period and are selected as astronauts will become permanent Federal employees and will be expected to serve NASA as an astronaut for a minimum period of five years. Civilian candidates not selected as astronauts may be placed in other positions within NASA depending upon Agency requirements and manpower constraints at the time. Successful military candidates will be detailed to NASA for a time period established by NASA/Department of Defense (DOD) Memorandum of Understanding. The most recent Memorandum of Understanding specifies a 7-year tour of duty. NASA has an affirmative action program goal of having qualified minorities and women among the newly- selected astronaut candidates. Therefore, women and minority candidates are encouraged to apply. QUALIFICATIONS OF APPLICANTS (Both Military and Civilian) Mission Specialist Astronaut Candidate Program Applicants MUST meet the following minimum qualification requirements. All requirements must be met by the deadline of receiving applications (December 1, 1983, for civilian applicants). 1. Bachelor's degree from an accredited institution in engineering, biological or physical science, or mathematics. Degree must be supplemented by at least 3 years of related professional experience. An advanced degree is desirable and may be substituted for all or part of the experience requirement (master's degree = 1 year, PhD degree = 3 years). Quality of academic preparation is important. 2. Ability to pass NASA Class II space flight physical (similar to military and civilian flight physicals) to include the following specific standards: Distant visual acuity: 20/100 or better uncorrected; correctable to 20/20, each eye. Hearing loss not to exceed: Frequency (HZ) 500 1000 2000 Loss (db) Better ear 30 25 25 Worse ear 35 30 30 per ISO, 1964 Standard Blood Pressure: Preponderant systolic not to exceed 140, nor diastolic to exceed 90 mm Hg, measured in a sitting position. 3. Applicant height between 60 and 76 inches. Pilot Astronaut Candidate Program Applicants MUST meet the following minimum qualification requirements. All requirements must be met by the deadline for receiving applications (December 1, 1983, for civilian applicants). 1. Bachelor's degree from an accredited institution in engineering, biological or physical science, or mathematics. An advanced degree or equivalent experience is desired. Quality of academic preparation is important. 2. At least 1,000 hours pilot-in-command time in high performance jet aircraft (an aircraft having at least 3000 pounds of thrust per engine). Flight test experience is highly desirable. 3. Ability to pass NASA Class I space flight physical (similar to military and civilian flight physicals) to include the following specific standard: Distant visual acuity: 20/50 or better uncorrected; correctable to 20/20 each eye. Hearing loss not to exceed: Frequency (HZ) 500 1000 2000 Loss (db) 30 25 25 per ISO, 1964 Standard Blood Pressure: Preponderant systolic not to exceed 140, nor diastolic to exceed 90 mm Hg, measured in a sitting position. 4. Applicant height between 64 and 76 inches. EDUCATION REQUIREMENTS Applicants for the Astronaut Candidate Program must meet the basic education requirements for NASA engineering and scientific positions, specifically successful completion of a standard professional curriculum in an accredited college or university leading to a bachelor's degree with major study in an appropriate field of engineering, biological or physical science, or mathematics. The following degree fields which may be related to engineering and the sciences are not considered qualifying: - Degrees in Technology; i.e., Engineering Technology, Aviation Technology, Medical Technology, etc. - Degrees in Psychology (except Clinical, Physiological, or Experimental Psychology, which are considered qualifying). - Degrees in Aviation, Aviation Management, or similar fields. CITIZENSHIP REQUIREMENTS Current regulations require that preference for appointment to Astronaut Candidate positions be given to U.S. citizens when there is an adequate source of well qualified citizens available. NASA anticipates that there will be an adequate source of well qualified U.S. citizens. PAY AND BENEFITS Salaries for civilian candidates will be based on the General Schedule pay scale of the Federal Government, generally ranging from grades GS-11 through GS-14. Candidates will be compensated in accordance with prevailing Federal pay scales based on their individual academic achievements and experience. Other benefits include vacation and sick leave and participation in the Federal Government retirement, group health, and life insurance plans. Selected military candidates will be detailed to the Johnson Space Center but will remain in an active military status for pay, benefits, leave, and other similar military matters. APPLICATION PROCEDURES Civilian Application Procedure Civilian applications for appointment to astronaut candidate positions will be accepted beginning October 1, 1983, and must be received at the Johnson Space Center or postmarked no later than December 1, 1983. The necessary application materials may be obtained by completing the form included in this pamphlet and returning it to the address indicated. A complete college transcript of grades must be included when submitting the application forms. After preliminary screening, additional information may be requested from applicants, and references and supervisors may be contacted. Applicants who previously applied must submit new applications if they wish to be considered. Active-Duty Military Application Procedures Active-duty military personnel must submit applications through their respective military service and not directly to NASA, using procedures which will be disseminated by their service. Application packages may be obtained from NASA by completing the form included in this pamphlet; however, the application must be submitted to the appropriate address indicated below. For information on military requirements or deadlines, or to submit your application, please refer to the appropriate military point-of-contact below: Air Force Air Force Military Personnel Center Attn: MPCRPF2 Randolph AFB, TX 78150 Army Commander Military Personnel Center Attn: DAPC-OPA-V 200 Stovall Street Alexandria, VA 22332 Marine Corps Commandant Marine Corps Attn: Code MMOA3 Washington, DC 20380 Navy Commander Naval Military Personnel Command Navy Department Attn: NMPC 446B Washington, DC 20370 ... Final Selection Personal interviews and thorough medical evaluations will be required for both civilian and military applicants under final consideration. Final selection will be announced by May 1984, and all applicants will be notified in writing of the outcome. Successful applicants will be asked to report to the Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center, Houston, Texas, on a date to be established. Selection rosters established through this process will be valid for a period of 1 year following their establishment and may be used for selection of additional Astronaut Candidates during that time should the need arise. REQUEST FOR APPLICATION PACKAGE Send name and address to: Astronaut Candidate Program Mail Code AHX NASA-Johnson Space Center Houston, TX 77058 ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 01-Jan-84 0302 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #77 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts at MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 77 Today's Topics: Improper address posted for L5 USENET mailing list. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 30 Dec 83 5:38:46-PST (Fri) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: hplabs!sdcrdcf!sdcsvax!sdccsu3!coleman @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Improper address posted for L5 USENET mailing list. ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 02-Jan-84 0302 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #78 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts at MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 78 Today's Topics: [Anderson: SPACE Digest V4 #77] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 1 Jan 84 17:35:23 EST From: Margot Subject: [Anderson: SPACE Digest V4 #77] To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC.ARPA It looks like the copy we recieved here got truncated (SPACE@YALE) ??: *** Forwarded Message Follows **** Return-Path: <@SU-AI:OTA@S1-A> Date: 01 Jan 84 0302 PST From: Ted Anderson Subject: SPACE Digest V4 #77 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts at MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 77 Today's Topics: Improper address posted for L5 USENET mailing list. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 30 Dec 83 5:38:46-PST (Fri) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: hplabs!sdcrdcf!sdcsvax!sdccsu3!coleman @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Improper address posted for L5 USENET mailing list. ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* *** End of Forwarded Message **** ------- ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 03-Jan-84 0302 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #79 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts at MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 79 Today's Topics: The Nature of Paradigm Shifts --> space-based evolution AW&ST Address ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 2 January 1984 23:42 EST From: Robert Elton Maas Subject: The Nature of Paradigm Shifts --> space-based evolution To: LIN @ MIT-ML cc: SPACE @ MIT-MC Date: 2 January 1984 15:34 EST From: Herb Lin on survival, i think that the odds are essentially zero that we will contribute to the genetic pool in 10^11 years, regardless of nuclear war, because I don't believe that interstellar space travel will ever be possible. I disagree. Already we have achieved petri-dish fertilization, and soon may have petri-bowl pregnancy. Assuming we establish a permanent habitat in space, we'll have time to study the way cells work to where we can generate a living cell from nothing but the DNA (being sure to include all the symbiots of course: nuclear DNA, mitochondrial DNA, centrole DNA, and any other symbiots or escapees that may be hiding in the cell) and some chemicals. At that point, very small spaceprobes can deliver all the DNA of all the creatures from Earth to spots lightyears away by sending only the encoding of all the DNA and a machine to bootstrap a chemical factory, then recreating the DNA and the cells and the lifeforms in the new location. Of course the encoding of life can withstand higher accelerations and random jarring than the life itself could, and no life-support would be needed any time along the voyage, so cruder transportation means could be used such as pulsed Earth-based lasers or hydrogen-fusion explosions. By sending out lots of these tiny probes to lots of spots in the universe, travelling at relativistic speeds, we may be able to spread our genetic material throughout the universe in a rather short time, as an alternative to spreading computers/androids throughout the universe, if we should so choose. Of course after this initial seeding, evolution will occur everywhere and 1E11 years hence much of our genetic material will have been replaced by better (more survivable) genetic material, leaving only a small amount of our original stuff in its present form. But there will be many more chances for our stuff to mix with the new genes and find favorable combinations, so here and there one of our genes may actually survive, and other places some other genes may survive, and even if computers take over most of the universe by then, infestations of biological life will remain around and about, and some significant percentage of our current gene pool may actually be around in various nooks and crannies even then. On the other hand, if we stay here and just send robots out there, virtually all of our current genes will be EXTINCT in 1E11 years as you suggest. ------------------------------ Date: 1 Jan 84 9:30:59-PST (Sun) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: hplabs!hpda!fortune!amd70!tc @ Ucb-Vax Subject: AW&ST Address The address on the subscription card is: Aviation Week & Space Technology P.O. Box 503 Hightstown, N.J. 08520 "Subscriptions solicited and limited to executive, management, engineering and scientific levels in industry, airlines, corporate aviation, government and military" Tom Crawford ...amd70!tc ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 04-Jan-84 0302 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #80 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts at MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 80 Today's Topics: advantages of computer storage of genes Interstellar space travel -- is it possible? The Nature of Paradigm Shifts --> space-based evolution Interstellar space travel -- is it possible? The Nature of Paradigm Shifts --> space-based evolution ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 3 Jan 1984 0927-PST From: Richard M. King Subject: advantages of computer storage of genes To: space@KESTREL One advantage of using electronic storage of genetic information is that cruder and faster means of transportation can be used, but there is another side of the coin. {\it slower} means of transportation can be selected. The speed of light is approximately 3*10^5 KPS. If we select a speed of 10^-5C or 3KPS, readily achievable with a Jupiter flyby, we can go one light year in 10^5 years (obviously), reaching several interesting stars in less than a million years. When we get where we're going we can use a capture manouver to stop without wasting fuel (which would probably "go bad" by the time we got there). Ion rockets could be used for fine control to achieve capture; frozen mercury would probably "keep" that long. In flight power requirements, which would be quite modest, could be supplied by slow-decaying isotopes. The larger amounts of power that would be needed after capture could be supplied by a nuclear reactor that would be started upon arrival. I don't know, but I suspect that solid diffusion would be minimal at the low temperatures of interstellar space, so the electronics should still (again?) work. (Maybe we should send vacuum tubes?) It seems clear to me that there is {\it already} technology at hand to send a shuttle-payload-size package on such a journey; we should probably send a modified shuttle and solve the problem of landing! (I wonder how the tiles would survive a million years in space? I suppose the thing should be surrounded by an inch of foam rubber.) Using SRB's and SSME's to get off the ground, opening the payload bay to get sunlight to run an ion rocket to get to the moon's orbit, using the moon to get to Venus's orbit, and then swinging by Jupiter for speed and Saturn for aiming would have us on our way. Close the cargo bay doors (they'll never work when they get there, but they shouldn't need to) and we're on our way! When it gets there it lowers skids and lands. Another alternative is to land on water. Fill the machine with Styrofoam and it should be possible to "land" on water quite safely. ------- ------------------------------ Date: 3 Jan 1984 9:54-PST From: dietz%usc-cse%USC-ECL@SRI-NIC To: space@mit-mc Cc: lin@mit-ml Subject: Interstellar space travel -- is it possible? Via: Usc-Cse; 03 Jan 84 10:36:26 I don't recall seeing Lin's message in this digest, (was it a private message to REM?) but I'll respond anyway. Date: 2 January 1984 15:34 EST From: Herb Lin on survival, i think that the odds are essentially zero that we will contribute to the genetic pool in 10^11 years, regardless of nuclear war, because I don't believe that interstellar space travel will ever be possible. Herb, I don't see how you can make this prediction. Similar predictions were made for heavier-than-air flying vehicles, for sattelites, for manned spacecraft. These predictions, like yours, were made AFTER all the fundamental discoveries/inventions necessary had already been made. Many different schemes have been outlined for interstellar space travel that look feasible. Manmade objects are already leaving the solar system at 10^-4 c -- and that's just with chemical propulsion (and gravitational assists). Boost this velocity by a factor of 50 to 100 and generation ships become feasible. I'll be adventurous (some will say conservative) and predict that, baring nuclear war or social collapse, a manned interstellar spacecraft will leave the solar system before the end of the next century. If you believe that there are many intelligent civilizations in the galaxy (I don't) then you don't even need interstellar spacecraft to spread human genes around the galaxy -- radio will do (reconstructing a working cell on the other end is a problem left to the reader). It's already possible to clone an entire human genome in bacterial hosts (in fact, it's been done); so it won't be too many decades before an entire human genome is sequenced. ------------------------------ Date: 3 January 1984 23:22 EST From: Herb Lin Subject: The Nature of Paradigm Shifts --> space-based evolution To: REM @ MIT-MC cc: SPACE @ MIT-MC In-reply-to: Msg of 2 Jan 1984 23:42 EST from Robert Elton Maas why would we *want* to send our DNA molecules over the universe? For what purpose? ------------------------------ Date: 3 January 1984 23:35 EST From: Herb Lin Subject: Interstellar space travel -- is it possible? To: dietz%usc-cse @ USC-ECL cc: space @ MIT-MC In-reply-to: Msg of 3 Jan 1984 9:54-PST from dietz%usc-cse%USC-ECL at SRI-NIC From: dietz%usc-cse%USC-ECL at SRI-NIC To: space at mit-mc cc: lin Re: Interstellar space travel -- is it possible? I don't recall seeing Lin's message in this digest, (was it a private message to REM?) but I'll respond anyway. Date: 2 January 1984 15:34 EST From: Herb Lin on survival, i think that the odds are essentially zero that we will contribute to the genetic pool in 10^11 years, regardless of nuclear war, because I don't believe that interstellar space travel will ever be possible. Herb, I don't see how you can make this prediction. Similar predictions were made for heavier-than-air flying vehicles, for sattelites, for manned spacecraft. These predictions, like yours, were made AFTER all the fundamental discoveries/inventions necessary had already been made. Many different schemes have been outlined for interstellar space travel that look feasible. I didn't realize that my submission would go to SPACE, but I don't mind. The reason I don't think I.S. travel will be possible is not for lack of technology, but for lack of motivation. Previous earth-bound explorers were at least motivated by the hope that they would be able to establish some kind of reasonable two-way interchange between whatever they found and where they came from. If you believe in relativity, there is no way that two way interchange can take place on time scales shorter than years (at the most optimistic prediction). That doesn't qualify as reasonable two-way interchange. Unmanned space probes are a different matter, and I suspect that it will someday be possible to send robots throughout the galaxy. But why would we do such a thing? To get back information, OK. To spread our gene pool? Why? ------------------------------ Date: 4 January 1984 02:40 EST From: Robert Elton Maas Subject: The Nature of Paradigm Shifts --> space-based evolution To: LIN @ MIT-ML cc: SPACE @ MIT-MC, rem @ SU-AI Date: 3 January 1984 23:22 EST From: Herb Lin why would we *want* to send our DNA molecules over the universe? For what purpose? [The answer is obvious to anyone who understands evolution by natural selection.] Because we have genes that give us the desire to survive (if we didn't, we wouldn't be here now) and because we have genes that give us the power of analytic thought (at least, most of us, you and I and everyone on this mailing list etc.) and because our science has shown us enough about the Universe to understand the concept and benefit-toward-survival of widespread distribution of lifeforms carrying our genes and our technology has brought us very close to feasibility (just a few tens of years to go; out of 4.3 billion years our genes have been evolving to date). I.e. we want to survive (by programing by our genes) and we will soon have a method to survive and we know we are close to having that method so naturally we will want to actually carry out that method of survival. In a lot of ways, the conditional probability of instituting panspermia as soon as we can (if we don't go extinct by nuclear war beforehand) is greater (more likely) than the current/absolute probability that we'll realize we have to prevent nuclear war to survive and that we'll choose to go ahead and do that prevention and that we'll actually be capable of preventing nuclear war. I ask you, why would we WANT to stop nuclear war, given that it's probably unstoppable? Sure we could WISH to stop nuclear war, but WANTing to do so implies some belief it's a reasonable/possible wish. ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 05-Jan-84 0303 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #81 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts at MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 81 Today's Topics: Re: Deuterium on Venus Astronaut requirements Terraforming? Astroforming! Interstellar space travel -- is it possible? Re: Space Art & Tourists in Space Re: AW&ST Address Clipping service - Commercialization of space ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 3 Jan 84 18:07:54-PST (Tue) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: ihnp4!houxm!houxl!braddy @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: Deuterium on Venus In-Reply-To: Article <14936@sri-arpa.UUCP> Why would you want to explode fusion bombs in Venus' atmosphere??? ===David Braddy houxl!braddy ------------------------------ Date: 4 Jan 1984 0746-PST From: Wmartin@OFFICE-3 (Will Martin) Subject: Astronaut requirements To: space@MIT-MC Can someone explain the purpose of a minimum height requirement for "Mission Specialist Astronaut Candidates" (as included in SPACE Digest V4 #76)? I can understand MAXIMUM height requirements for any shuttle crew or passengers, as they can't make special design changes to accomodate a few extra-tall people. I can also understand minimum height requirements for "Pilot Astronaut Candidates" (which are 4" higher than the other minimum, by the way) -- the pilot must be able to sit in a standard seat and see out the window, I guess. But what on earth (or off it) is wrong with having very short (and therefore lightweight) astronauts as mission specialists? They could get into nooks and crannies where full-size adults couldn't fit. The spacesuits are all custom-made for each astronaut anyhow, right? So that doesn't matter. I would think there would be definite advantages in reduced life-support requirements and the versatility of the individual astronaut's abilities to having at least a few smaller-sized people in the program. Also, doesn't the 60" minimum height discriminate against the number of women that could be chosen? (I speak not for myself in this, as I am 74" myself [and too far gone in many other ways to qualify...]. Just curious...) Will Martin ------- ------------------------------ Date: 4 Jan 1984 12:29-PST From: dietz%usc-cse%USC-ECL@SRI-NIC To: space@mit-mc Subject: Terraforming? Astroforming! Via: Usc-Cse; 04 Jan 84 14:37:38 Using the deuterium on Venus got me thinking about other sources in the solar system. An obvious one is Jupiter. Jupiter's core consists of a small rocky/metallic center surrounded by lots of helium & metallic hydrogen, at a temperature of about 54000 degrees K. My first thought was that maybe the deuterium has settled out of the hydrogen under gravitational forces, and maybe we could ignite this layer with a bomb. This would probably destroy the planet, though, and there's no way of getting a bomb that deep -- it would melt first. If there was a way we could fuse some of the deuterium in Jupiter, Jupiter would radiate more heat and the Jovian satellites would warm up. Some have lots of water, so oceans could be formed. (Clarke had the aliens doing this in "2010".) Fusion reactions can be catalyzed by heavy negatively charged particles, such as muons. Muons are about 200 times heavier than electrons, so when one replaces an electron in a deuterium molecule the nuclei are brought much closer together -- so close that they nearly instantly fuse by quantum mechanical tunnelling. This process isn't really economical on earth because you can't get enough fusion reactions to occur before the muon is trapped by a reaction product nucleus. In Jupiter's core, however, the hydrogen and deuterium are in a dense metallic state, which means that the electrons are not tied down in orbits around individual nuclei. I would guess that a muon injected into metallic deuterium would catalyse very many reactions -- possibly millions or billions of fusions -- before it decayed. In Jupiter, the reaction p + D --> He-3 + gamma would probably predominate, unless the deuterium has separated, in which case D+D fusions could be induced. But how to get the muons into Jupiter's core? While muons can penetrate thousands of feet of rock, they can't reach the center of Jupiter from the surface. What can? Neutrinos. The probability of a neutrino reacting with matter increases linearly with neutrino energy. At 10 trillion electron volts, the mean-free-path of a neutrino in ordinary matter is about the diameter of the Earth. For this reason, a group of physicists have recently proposed building a giant floating accelerator to do a neutrino "CAT scan" of the Earth's innards ("Neutrino Exploration of the Earth", Science 4602 (220) 10 June 1983, page 1142). The accelerator would produce 10 TeV protons, which would slam into a fixed target. The debris produced would decay, producing high energy neutrinos and antineutrinos. The decay tube, called the "snout", would be a kilometer long and would have to be evacuated. It would swivelled to scan the neutrino beam through the Earth. A detector would be moved around on the other side of the planet. The accelerator would be 30 kilometers in diameter, with a circumference of over 100 miles. Before you scoff at this, remember that the next high energy accelerator to be built in the US, the "Ultra High Energy Accelerator" or "Desertron" (named after the probable location) will have the same dimensions and produce 10-20 TeV protons. The Desertron will cost somewhere around $1 billion to build, about twice what the Fermilab "Tevatron" cost (in constant dollars), even though the energy is much higher. A high energy neutrino interacting with matter creates a particle "shower" of more substantial particles. Even if a tiny fraction of the 10 TeV is converted to negative muons, many will be produced. These muons are slowed as they pass through matter; they eventually come to rest. In Jupiter, the muons would then catalyze many fusion reactions. A fusion reaction liberates around 5 MeV of energy, so each muon could catalyze the production of about 5 TeV of energy -- possibly orders of magnitude more. We can irradiate Jupiter from Earth, since neutrinos are stable particles. Generating a beam of neutrinos with a spread of a few seconds of arc would be necessary. Thermal pollution would probably make Earth-surface based neutrino guns impractical; close solar orbit seems like a better location. Planetary scientists will probably want movable spacegoing neutrino guns to scan the insides of the planets, moons and the sun, even if the physics makes astroforming Jupiter impractical. ------------------------------ Date: 5 January 1984 02:24 EST From: Robert Elton Maas Subject: Interstellar space travel -- is it possible? To: LIN @ MIT-ML cc: SPACE @ MIT-MC, dietz%usc-cse @ USC-ECL You say there's no motivation to create progeny unless we can establish two-way comunication with them. Yet all around this planet I see creatures leaving progeny around; animals lay eggs and abandom them, they later hatch, and the parents never even get to hear the offspring say "mama" not to mention any interactive communication; people plan for their children's education in the event the parents should die, by buying life insurance, even though the life insurance will never be paid to a child who can converse with the parents, only to an orphaned child; people write scientific papers with no insurance anyone at all will read them during the scientist's lifetime. -- The basic fact of evolution is that reproduction is one-way. A creature gives life to its offspring in the hope that the offspring will carry the genes onward after the original creature has died, not that the offspring will somehow give something back to the parents in the indefinite future. The motivation to reproduce is advantagous, those creatures which don't have it die out, and with them the gene pools that lack that gene. Apparently you somehow lack that gene, or misunderstand yourself enough to deny that motivation despite actually having that genetically-deterined motivation. If you don't want your genes spread around, that's fine with me, 1E11 years hence my genes will exist but yours will be extinct. ------------------------------ Date: 3 Jan 84 12:36:29-PST (Tue) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: decvax!linus!utzoo!kcarroll @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: Space Art & Tourists in Space In-Reply-To: Article <14765@sri-arpa.UUCP>, <795@cvl.UUCP> hronous orbits, for example. A long-term increase in the ion population could result in brighter nights, if the aurorae borealis and australis began to approach the equator-- this would make earthbound astronomers unhappy. Depending on the type of ion produced, the old fears of reducing the amount of ozone in the upper atmosphere, thus increasing the flux of ultra-violet solar radiation at the earth's surface, might be realized. Further, the quality of the vacuum in low-earth orbit could be degraded, with ions reacting with the glass coverings of photo-electric cells, and with the optics of high-precision telescopes and spy-satellites in low orbits. In short, I don't think that we have much to fear at the moment, especially from this one project, but we shouldn't be >too< complacent... -Kieran A. Carroll ...decvax!utzoo!kcarroll ------------------------------ Date: 3 Jan 84 14:26:44-PST (Tue) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: decvax!linus!utzoo!henry @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: AW&ST Address In-Reply-To: Article <4206@amd70.UUCP> Actually, AW+ST is quite willing to let you subscribe even if you don't meet their preferred-readership specs. It just costs more, a lot more. At least, this was the case several years ago. -- Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology {allegra,ihnp4,linus,decvax}!utzoo!henry ------------------------------ Date: Thursday, 5 January 1984 03:11 est From: Schauble@MIT-MULTICS.ARPA Subject: Clipping service - Commercialization of space To: space@MIT-MC.ARPA Message-ID: <840105081105.487926@MIT-MULTICS.ARPA> 'LEASECRAFT' opens industrialization of space From the December 1983 issue of Industrial Research & Development ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Pushing hard for industrialization of space, NASA has signed an agreement with Fairchild Industries under which Fairchild will design and build its own privately owned, unmanned space station. As its part of the bargain, NASA will provide technical support for the $200 million platform, dubbed 'Leasecraft', and offer it two free journeys on the space shuttle. The first trip, in 1987, will put the platform in Earth orbit. On the second trip, six months later, shuttle astronauts will service the platform. After the second trip, Leasecraft will be a full-fledged business proposition. Fairchild will rent out space aboard the platform to industrial and government customers, and will insure that customer's packages reach the station. To make its deliveries, Fairchild will pay NASA at the going commercial rate for payload space aboard the shuttle. "This is a good example of President Reagan's program to encourage private enterprise in space," declared NASA administrator James Beggs at the signing ceremony in Washington. Leasecraft, said Fairchild chairman Edward Uhl, "should put the U.S. in the lead in facilities available for space manufacturing and offers the promise of profitable business for potential customers, for NASA, and for Fairchild." One strong possibility as an early customer for Leasecraft is the combination of the McDonnell Douglas Corp and Johnson & Johnson, which has tested a process for manufacturing pharmaceuticals in reduced-gravity conditions of high-Earth orbit during recent space shuttle flights. Other possibilities include companies seeking to produce rare alloys and extremely pure electronic components in space. According to preliminary designs, Leasecraft will be a 15 X 15 X 14.5 ft structure that will weigh 12,000 lb. Two solar panels will power the craft, communications, and data processing. The platform will be designed to operate continuously for at least 10 years. ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 06-Jan-84 0302 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #82 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts at MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 82 Today's Topics: APU Transfer Astronaut requirements Re: Space Art & Tourists in Space / ion pollution Clipping service - Commercialization of space / unmanned?? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 4 Jan 84 13:04:22-PST (Wed) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: harpo!eagle!allegra!alice!alb @ Ucb-Vax Subject: APU Transfer NASA has decided to take the three APU's from the Discovery, now sitting in the VAB, and put them in the Challenger. This follows the fuel leak and subsequent fire i two of the three APU's used on Columbia during STS-9. Discovery's APU's, the same as Challenger's, are newer and have been used less, and NASA is transferring them only as a safeguard, since they do not ye know why the Columbia's leaked. The APU work is expected to be completed in time for the 12 January rollout of the Challenger to pad 39A, from where it will be launched on 3 February. Discovery will be prepared for its April maiden flight after Challenger is moved to the pad. ------------------------------ Date: 6 January 1984 03:27 EST From: Robert Elton Maas Subject: Astronaut requirements To: Wmartin @ OFFICE-3 cc: SPACE @ MIT-MC [Why the minimum height requirement for mission specialist?] Well, there's a lot of heavy equipment in the ship, and if a somthing heavy should break loose and fall on the captain it'd be nice if the specialist could lend a hand at lifting it off him so he wouldn't be pinned there and eventually crushed to death. A frail little person wouldn't be strong enough. I agree, it's a rather silly rule, and does tend to discriminate against women and oriental people as well as midgits and other unusually short people. ------------------------------ Date: 6 January 1984 03:41 EST From: Robert Elton Maas Subject: Re: Space Art & Tourists in Space / ion pollution To: decvax!linus!utzoo!kcarroll @ UCB-VAX cc: SPACE @ MIT-MC Although the start of your message is missing, so your message starts in the middle of a word: "hronous orbits, for example.", your point about ion rockets damaging the upper atmosphere is well taken. We should proceed with designing and building ion rockets, but be ware that as with all other things we do there's a limit to how much we can do of one thing before we start polluting the ecology too much. We must therefore be willing to limit the total use of ion rockets or any other technology when the side-effects become significant in negative ways. (We should have curtailed use of coal and petroleum many years ago, before Canada started suffering acid rain from our burning of coal and before Los Angeles started having smog alerts.) But if the exhaust from commercial jetliners isn't destroying our atmosphere yet, even though each of about a hundred major airports has a hundred or so takeoffs per day, I suspect we can put a lot of ionliners up in space before the ozone layer is damaged significantly. ------------------------------ Date: 6 January 1984 03:53 EST From: Robert Elton Maas Subject: Clipping service - Commercialization of space / unmanned?? To: Schauble @ MIT-MULTICS cc: SPACE @ MIT-MC Well, that's a start. But we still need a manned station up there for experiments that need more human intervention than just remote control from Earth. Or do we? How would it be if except for shuttle flights to service the platform and other satellites, the whole space program was unmanned for the next several years? We could run an automated mining station on the Moon and on asteroids, run an automated smelting station and materials-processing station in low Earth orbit, and eventually construct (in LEO) full size solar-power collectors and habitat out of lunar and asteroid materials; the whole operation controlled remotely from Earth, with long feedback delays for mining but short Earth-to-LEO delays for everything else, until such time as the hotel-in-the-sky is finished and ready for occupancy. Then we start actually moving people up there to live. Opinions anyone? ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 07-Jan-84 0303 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #83 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts at MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 83 Today's Topics: 1984 Space Shuttle Launch Schedule Re: Interstellar manned spaceflight this century ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 4 Jan 84 16:55:32-PST (Wed) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: hplabs!zehntel!tektronix!orca!shark!philb @ Ucb-Vax Subject: 1984 Space Shuttle Launch Schedule From December 19, 1983 AW&ST: 1984 SPACE SHUTTLE LAUNCH SCHEDULE ---------------------------------- Launch NASA Crew Duration Date Designation Size (days) Orbiter Payload ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Jan. 30 41-B 5 8 Challenger Manned Maneuvering unit flights, rendezvous ballon deployment, Palapa B-2 Indoesian communications satellite, Western Union Westar 6 Communications satellite, West German SPAS (shuttle pallet satellite) Apr. 4 41-C 5 6 Challenger Long-Duration Exposure Facility, Repair of Solar Maximum Mission (SMM) satellite June 4 41-D 6 7 Discovery Office of Aeronautics and Space Technology Satellite (OAST-1), Large Format Camera, Hughes Syncom 4-1 (Leasat), Telesat of Canada Anik communications satellite July 14 41-E - - Challenger Defense Dept. Aug. 9 41-F 5 7 Discovery Shuttle-pointed autonomous research tool for astronomy (Spartan-1), Satellite Business Systems SBS-D communications satellite, AT&T Telstar 3C communications satellite Syncom 4-2 Aug. 30 41-G 5 10 Columbia Office of Space and Terrestrial Application Satellite (OSTA-3), Earth Radiation Budget Satellite (ERBS) Sept. 28 41-H - - Challenger Defense Dept. Oct. 24 51-A 6 6 Discovery Materials Science Lab (MSL-1), Anik, Gas Bridge (Fluid Transfer Experiment) Nov.21 51-B 7 7 Challenger Spacelab 3 Dec. 17 51-C 5 7 Discovery Tracking and Data Relay Satellite (TDRS-B), Materials Science Lab (MSL-2) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Space shuttle launch schedule for 1984 reflects rapid buildup in the launch rate. In the National Aeronautics and Space Administration designation, the numbers 4 and 5 indicate fiscal year, 1 indicates Kennedy Space Center and letters show launch sequence. Phil Biehl Tektronix ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 6 Jan 84 13:15 EST From: Gocek.Henr@PARC-MAXC.ARPA Subject: Re: Interstellar manned spaceflight this century In-reply-to: "OTA@S1-A.ARPA's message of 06 Jan 84 03:02 PST" To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC.ARPA cc: Someone recently commented that manned, interstellar flights would be made before the turn of the century. I agree that the technology will be available, and the question of "Why?" doesn't bother me. The problem is that, assuming that faster-than-light travel is not available, by the time the space travellers get anywhere in their 20th century ship, they will have been passed by 21st century travellers using more advanced, 21st century transportation systems. The early travellers would waste several years, only to arrive at an already established colony. It's one thing to test out hardware in orbital missions or earth-moon missions, but missions that never return are another story. That's why it was feasible to send Mercury crafts into space, rather than simply waiting for the space shuttle. Interstellar travel is a situation where I think we should wait for reasonable technology. The first oceanic crossing wasn't in a canoe. The first manned, deep space crossing shouldn't be in a primitive craft either. Gary ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 08-Jan-84 0303 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #84 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts at MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 84 Today's Topics: TR article on Mars base - (nf) The Nature of Paradigm Shifts --> space-based evolution Interstellar space travel -- is it possible? backpacking Re: Interstellar manned spaceflight this century ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 5 Jan 84 22:09:08-PST (Thu) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: hplabs!zehntel!tektronix!ucbcad!ucbesvax.turner @ Ucb-Vax Subject: TR article on Mars base - (nf) #N:ucbesvax:8700010:000:8352 ucbesvax!turner Jan 5 02:14:00 1984 This month's issue of Technology Review has a proposal for a manned Mars base. Some of its conclusions (probably familiar to most of you): - the bulk of the materiel should be freighted by unmanned long-haul propulsion systems like solar-sails and ion drive, in "small" batches (measured in hundred of tons); there will be dozens of these; - crew transport will require higher velocities (liquid hydrogen/oxygen engines are mentioned) because of the dangers of longer travel times; radiation and gravity- deficiency syndromes are mentioned; braking fuel can be conserved by skimming the atmosphere; a solar storm shelter will be needed; - a crew of seven members of both sexes is optimal; an odd number, to break ties in voting (?!), and more than five, for social variety; both sexes probably because this also provides more variety; all results derive from psychological studies; being past child-bearing age will be a consideration in crew-choice, in view of the radiation hazards; - forward basing on Phobos/Deimos, for a months-long survey (with ground-based rovers) prior to actual basing; - once on the surface, it might be possible to use gliders for long-range surface missions; - on the trips over and back, complete recycling is infeasible; all food for the journey must be taken along; - plants can grow at low atmospheric pressure--greenhouse agriculture is possible in inflated surface bubbles; - fuel tanks can be reused as surface housing, buried in Martian soil for insulation and radiation-shielding; - equatorial sites are preferred over polar sites, even if vital resources (water, oxygen, etc.) are more easily extracted at polar zones--it seems that Martian winters are not to be trifled with; - no problems with using Martian resources; most necessities (oxygen, inert buffer gases for breathing, water, desalinated soil for growing, etc.) can be extracted in more than one way; - "complex AI techniques" are disparaged in the context of unmanned surface rovers; - projected cost: around 2/3 of Apollo, with much lower annual outlay by comparison; expected year of basing: 2000 AD. While not an expert, I still feel the need to question some of their conclusions. Some of these objections are detailed below. STYLE OF TRANSPORTATION I fully approve of long-haul techniques, if they can be made workable-- they favor economies of scale (both in transport and in production of transport); there has been, to my mind, far too much "get it done somehow, drop it later" in the U.S. space programs. However, I don't agree with the conclusion that long-haul *manned* transport is infeasible--I suspect that rocketry is being pushed rather more for its usual drama, even though the manned vehicle would certainly be launched from orbit rather than from the surface. Would an American public wait 18 months longer for the trip to complete? The question is absurd--the proposal is *already* asking them to wait for 18 years. The matter of safety is compelling, but not convincing: unless the trajectories for either the trip or the return voyage involve close solar orbits, why bother with speed? Why not send more people by sail, shielded by cargo, perhaps in smaller batches. Intervehicle shuttles could be used between storms for social exchange, emergencies, etc. (Trips from one group to the next might take a while at maximum separation. "Captain, can I have the car for a few weeks?") Occasional social isolation and social separation might go a long way toward providing the variety that psychologists find so important. Separate, long-haul manned vehicles might actually improve overall safety, since if one group is lost through some accident, the remaining groups can continue. Not to mention the messy, scary-sounding business of coming out of a month's long high-speed trajectory to brake against an atmosphere. (I realize that I should have more faith in computers, but . . . ) Consider the matter of cost as well--two vehicle development programs will be more expensive than one, and the rocket-powered vehicle would be another expensive one-shot deal. RECYCLING DURING TRIP There are two basic approaches to total recycling: contained ecology and chemical processing. (Even the contained ecology approach will involve some chemical processing, of course.) Chemical processing is difficult; it would certainly require much heat, with dead-mass costs for radiating the excess. Any breakdown of processing equipment could be fatal. Derived foodstuffs would probably be horribly unexciting. Contained ecology is tricky. Don't get the idea that they'll be taking tons of dirt, I'm not advocating that. But I think that a decade of near-orbit experimentation could produce a system that is compact, maintainable for years, and with very low energy requirements. Almost certainly, it would be more massive than the food-supplies for an 18-month liquid-fueled round-trip. But again, I object to that style, and would in any case prefer to see contained ecology techniques, since development of these can start now (on Earth), and will have long- term benefits, with much spin-off potential. Genetic engineering will find a place here, I think. The research cost could be quite low. PSYCHOSOCIAL DYNAMICS The article points out that Russian cosmonauts have received better training than Americans in dealing with the psychological stresses of long orbital stints. (Nevertheless, the tedium is thought to be extreme--possibly the biggest single problem in a six-month mission.) We are just now going beyond the test-pilot psychological profile-- people who can handle long periods of little excitement are quite different from those who are best fit to sporadic adrenaline rushes. In view of what I have laid out above, perhaps a recent Nobel Laureate geneticist represents (but for her very advanced age) the ideal Mars mission crew-member: patient, methodical, reclusive, impossible to ruffle, and devoted to the natural sciences. (And the ideal candidate's reaction to being selected? "Oh, dear--photographers, again.") The matter of sexual balance is fraught with questions that are irrelevant to mission objectives. The rationale is that there will be sex--so there must be men and women. (But with an odd man or women out?) I favor a sexual balance for other reasons than this, but an all-woman or all-man crew doesn't seem out of the question. Maybe there will still be sex--so go flame in net.flame if this irks you. I have seen fewer problems with jealousy in homosexual relationships than in heterosexual ones. Given the way attitudes are changing now, by 2000, the moral questions might be considered totally irrelevant. I applaud the idea of using older people, though not so much for the reasons given. There is even a PR angle, here (where I have been so contemptuous of that in comments above): by 2000, we will be a nation of older people. Given the underlying theme of the mission, as implied by the article, choosing older people makes a lot of sense-- that, as a nation historically and demographically middle-aged, we still have what it takes. (How old will *you* be in the year 2000?) CONCLUDING NOTES I think the projected cost is an overestimate. I think the safety- measures rationale looks dumb in view of ideas like using a glider in a thin atmosphere over boulder-strewn, craggy terrain. I think the "complex AI techniques" bit is more rationalization--a maximum speed of 1 mph would probably take care of most reaction-time problems. Rapprochment with the Russians would get us their walker-technology. On the favorable side, the low-pressure bubble-greenhouses sound like fun. Perhaps they could be layered to provide staging between pressure zones, a gradation of Martian-thin-to-human-breathable atmospheres, thus providing a buffer against sudden pressure loss in the main modules. If the sails are nonporous (see an earlier note of mine as to why they might not be), and the reflective coating could be stripped, they could be laminated to make bubble-tissue, yielding the prospect of very large, multicellular atmosphere containers, arranged for fail-safe protection against sandstorm damage. --- Michael Turner (ucbvax!ucbesvax.turner) ------------------------------ Date: 7 January 1984 14:55 EST From: Herb Lin Subject: The Nature of Paradigm Shifts --> space-based evolution To: REM @ MIT-MC cc: rem @ SU-AI, SPACE @ MIT-MC From: Robert Elton Maas Date: 3 January 1984 23:22 EST From: Herb Lin why would we *want* to send our DNA molecules over the universe? For what purpose? [The answer is obvious to anyone who understands evolution by natural selection.] Because we have genes that give us the desire to survive (if we didn't, we wouldn't be here now) and because we have genes that give us the power of analytic thought (at least, most of us, you and I and everyone on this mailing list etc.) and because our science has shown us enough about the Universe to understand the concept and benefit-toward-survival of widespread distribution of lifeforms carrying our genes and our technology has brought us very close to feasibility (just a few tens of years to go; out of 4.3 billion years our genes have been evolving to date). I think I see a flaw in your reasoning about natural selection, whose principles I accept. Natural selection operates by giving each member of a particular species a differential advantage over other species, thereby enabling each of those members of the particular species to survive at a higher rate. This operates at the level of theindividual organism, and not at a species level. Only individual organisms have a motivation to survive and to have offspring; the species behavior is simply the result of collective individual behavior. If you argue that mankind will *collectively* band together to send its genes over the universe, mustn't you argue that somehow this will be beneficial to individual humans? I ask you, why would we WANT to stop nuclear war, given that it's probably unstoppable? Sure we could WISH to stop nuclear war, but WANTing to do so implies some belief it's a reasonable/possible wish. Because nuclear war indicates a distinct possibility that my children will be fried. Thus, this ties into my wish for preserving my individual genetic line. Still, if the war actually happens, I doubt I would adopt a survivalist mentality. ------------------------------ Date: 7 January 1984 15:29 EST From: Herb Lin Subject: Interstellar space travel -- is it possible? To: REM @ MIT-MC cc: SPACE @ MIT-MC, dietz%usc-cse @ USC-ECL In-reply-to: Msg of 5 Jan 1984 02:24 EST from Robert Elton Maas From: Robert Elton Maas You say there's no motivation to create progeny unless we can establish two-way comunication with them. Yet all around this planet I see creatures leaving progeny around; animals lay eggs and abandom them, they later hatch, and the parents never even get to hear the offspring say "mama" not to mention any interactive communication; people plan for their children's education in the event the parents should die, by buying life insurance, even though the life insurance will never be paid to a child who can converse with the parents, only to an orphaned child; people write scientific papers with no insurance anyone at all will read them during the scientist's lifetime. You're right on this point - i retract my statement on two-way communication. I still stand by my last msg concerning the motivation for individual behavior (until that's proven specious as well). ------------------------------ Date: Saturday, 7 January 1984 15:40:48 EST From: Hans.Moravec@CMU-RI-ROVER To: space@mc Subject: backpacking Message-ID: <1984.1.7.20.37.59.Hans.Moravec@CMU-RI-ROVER> n507 2246 06 Jan 84 BC-SHUTTLE-2takes-01-07 ADVANCE FOR SUNDAY By Albert Sehlstedt Jr. (c) 1984 The Baltimore Sun (Independent Press Service) WASHINGTON - Capitalizing on a maturing shuttle program, the United States will fly a record number of manned missions in space this year and experiment with a new method of maneuvering astronauts between orbiting vehicles. Ten shuttle flights, beginning with a Feb. 3 mission that will test a ''Buck Rogers'' backpack, will double the number of astronaut voyages attempted in any year of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's 25-year history. A previous maximum of five manned missions were flown in 1965 and 1966 when NASA was preparing for the moon landings that began in the summer of 1969. The maximum number of cosmonaut flights conducted by the Soviet Union in any year was six in 1980. However, the USSR, unlike the United States, has been constantly active in manned flight operations, accumulating extensive medical data and experimenting with long-duration missions lasting months at a time. The Russians appear also to be developing their own version of a space shuttle, and last month a congressional report said they were embarked on long-range programs to colonize the moon and Mars. NASA's plans this year call also for the deployment of 10 unmanned satellites from the 60-foot-long cargo bays of the shuttles as well as conducting 12 other space missions with so-called expendable launching vehicles; rockets that are used once and not recovered after a launching. Two of the highlights of the American program in 1984 will be the first test of the rocket backpack early next month, followed by a similar operation in April when other astronaut crewmen will leave the shuttle, fly to an inoperative scientific satellite and haul it back into the cargo bay for repairs. Next month's flyers will be Bruce McCandless 2d and Robert L. Stewart, the first Army astronaut assigned to the space program. All others have come from the Air Force, Navy, Marine Corps and civilian pursuits. McCandless and Stewart will venture from the shuttle on the fifth and seventh days of the eight-day mission, which is scheduled to end with the first landing of a shuttle on the 15,000-foot runway of NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The two crewmen will fly several hundred feet away from the shuttle, simulating the exercises future astronauts will employ when repairing or recovering inoperative satellites or, perhaps, rescuing comrades from a disabled space vehicle. Neither astronaut on this mission (or future missions) will be attached to the shuttle by any sort of tether, though the February test is a first. NASA abandoned the tether idea when, on reflection, the astronauts and other experts concluded that a dangling rope or other kind of line could become twisted in a man's legs or, worse yet, flap him whip-like against the side of the shuttle or a satellite he was attempting to reach. Indeed, one of the principal objectives of the McCandless-Stewart venture is a better understanding of how this sort of Buck Rogers maneuvering actually works in weightless flight as shuttle and astronauts orbit the earth at 17,000 miles an hour 150 miles above the atmosphere. The backpack, which would weigh more than 300 pounds on earth, was designed and built by the Denver division of Martin Marietta Aerospace under research and development contracts totaling approximately $40 million and extending over a period of years. NASA refers to the pack (two have been built for use in space) as a manned maneuvering unit, or MMU. Each MMU is equipped with 24 small jets positioned in such a way that the astronaut can move in any direction or roll, pitch and yaw like an airplane in flight. The astronaut's arms rest on two rigid supports, resembling splints, that extend forward from the backpacks. At the end of each splint are hand controllers that he manipulates to propel himself in any desired direction. There is enough propellant (nitrogen) in the MMU to allow a flyer up to six hours of flight outside the shuttle. The maneuvering system is divided into two parts so that if one part fails the other can be used to propel the astronaut back to the shuttle. Should both systems fail, the shuttle pilots could maneuver close enough to the stranded astronaut that he could be retrieved with the craft's mechanical arm. The 50-foot-long arm would be operated by another crewman through electronic controls on the shuttle's flight deck. The second mission using the MMUs is scheduled April 4 when another shuttle crew will fly up to a satellite called the Solar Maximum Mission (SMM) that was launched on Valentine's Day in 1980 for scientific studies of solar flares. The following winter, the 17,000-pound SMM became partly disabled when one of its control systems failed and one of its seven scientific instruments became inoperative. A shuttle crewman will stabilize the tumbling satellite so that it can be grasped by the mechanical arm and brought into the cargo bay for repairs. Retrieval and repair of satellites is one of the principal functions of the shuttle program. In June, NASA plans to launch the shuttle Discovery on its maiden voyage, bringing to three the number of craft in regular service. (A fourth shuttle, now being built, will complete the fleet, which is being developed and built at a cost of about $10 billion.) Additional shuttle flights are scheduled through the summer and fall. Barring unforeseen difficulties, NASA intends to complete the 10-mission shuttle year with another flight of the Discovery on Dec. 17. END nyt-01-07-84 0143est ------------------------------ Date: 7 January 1984 18:51 EST From: Robert Elton Maas Subject: Re: Interstellar manned spaceflight this century To: Gocek.Henr @ PARC-MAXC cc: SPACE-ENTHUSIASTS @ MIT-MC Minor point, in the early days of sailing we didn't have radio, so there as no way a fast ship overtaking a slower ship en route could find it to pick up its crew. Instellar travel will be different. There's no reason the crew of the first instellar ship need be left adrift by the second ship. The first crew can enjoy the first voyage while they're still young, instead of waiting forever for the "It's Tuesday, we must be passing Vega" high-speed ship, then in their old age join the crew of the second-generation ship. This assumes they are going in the same dirction. If not, your original complaint is invalid, since a canoe traveling to North America will get there faster than a sailing ship headed to India will get to NA, so the effort won't be wasted. Now on to my main point... I'm not totally disagreeing with you, but I have some amendments to your thesis: Date: Fri, 6 Jan 84 13:15 EST From: Gocek.Henr@PARC-MAXC.ARPA It's one thing to test out hardware in orbital missions or earth-moon missions, but missions that never return are another story. ... Interstellar travel is a situation where I think we should wait for reasonable technology. (1) There's a general fallacy involved here, although it only slightly applies here, but I'll cover it first: There's no point in spending effort on anything this year because next year we'll have better technology and the same amount of effort can get much more accomplished. This would be partly valid if effort were a "non-renewable resource" like petroleum. But effort is a "renewable resource", so if we do no work this year at all, we've totally wasted this year's quota of effort, wheras if we "waste our effort/time" working inefficiently this year at least we'll get a little accomplished, even if it seems small when we look back from next year, it's better than nothing. Even if it were a non-renewable resource like money, there are flaws in the argument. From a capitalist view, even though work we do this year is less productive than work we wait to do with better technology, everybody else is more productive next year too, so by the law of supply and demand the monetary value of work next year will be less, so it turns out the return on investment is the same now as next year. Thus private industry might as well spend money to make products&services to sell now, even though it seems they'd get more done if they wait. From a holistic view, if everybody waits until next year to invest money in new works, because the same money will accomplish more useful work next year, nobody will be doing the bootstrapping work this year that will make next year's technology possible, so in fact next year we won't have the new technology we were waiting for. Thus government MUST continue to invest money in pushing the frontiers even if it seems the money would be more effectively spent using better technology next year. (2) Now regarding interstellar flight: In the case of unmanned probes, your thesis doesn't apply. (Since you were writing about manned trips, I'm not contradicting you, yet, but see section 3 below.) When the Voyager was first proposed, I started to think "why bother sending Voyager out past Saturn to Uranus and Neptune using this cruddy chemical-rocket technology, when in five years the ion rocket will be developed and it can get there in half a year, overtaking the Voyager somewhere between Saturn and Uranus, with much better computers and instruments, grossly improving on Voyager's images of Saturn and passing Voyager before it even gets to Uranus? But then I thought, well it's nice to take out insurance, just in case the ion rocket takes longer to develop than expected and the super-Galileo has to use chemical rockets too, so launched in 1981 the super-Galileo doesn't get to any of the planets before the Voyager does. Little did I know it'd be worse than my worst fears, the planetary program would be slashed almost out of existance, the Voyager 2 being several years past Saturn, almost to Uranus, by the time the Galileo is launched with chemical rockets in 1985 or 1986 or ..., and the super-Galileo never even getting considered. The Voyager 2 may in fact be the only spacecraft to reach Uranus during my lifetime. Eventually of course some advanced-technology ship will overtake any of our various early travelers (Pioneer 11, Voyagers 1 and 2). But during that first part of the trip the early craft will arrive first and chart the course for the later craft as well as provide scientific information that helps us design the instruments and helps us plan the observation program of the later craft. Examples: Pioneer and Mariner gave a crude view of the planets, allowing us to pick landing targets on Mars for Viking and optimum viewing targets for Voyager. In particular Pioneer showed Saturn to be a lot more interesting visually than we thought it'd be, prompting us to invest in good cameras on Voyager. Pioneer and other craft were purturbed by the gravity of things it passed by, and measuring its trajectory gave us better knowledge of the orbits and mass of the satellites so the trajectory of Voyager could be planned better. Voyager in turn gave us enough information that Galileo will use an elaborate gravitational-assist programme to make each looping orbit in a different place to gather maximal information with minimum fuel consumption. The first interstellar probe with proper instrumentation will provide valuable information about the Oort cloud and other possible hazards to later faster-moving craft. -- Other advantages of spacecraft out there, even if moving slowly: With telscopes far beyond Pluto, we'll be beyond the obscuring effect of "zodiacial light" (dust in the Solar system) so we can get truly accurate measurements of our galaxy, and furthermore our base for triangulation will be larger so we can directly measure the distances to stars much further out than we can now, furthermore the relativistic purturbation of the Sun will be reduced so our paralax (triangulation) measurements can be more correct. We'll be able to measure the distance to nearby stars more accurately too, so as to accurately plan later trips by advanced craft. Also the scientific knowledge we gain in this early stage of interstellar exploration, both the geometry of our galaxy and the physics of the Oort cloud an vicinity, may be useful in understanding what we're dealing with so our later ships can take appropriate instead of useless instruments, and so those ships won't have to take unnecesary precautions about imagined but non-existant interstellar hazards yet can still take prcautions against real hazards discovered by the early ships. Recall how Voyager 1 found the rings of Saturn less dangerous than expected so Voyager 2 could "shoot the rapids" and thus gain more info, while one of the probes found Jupiter's environment to be much more dangerous than expected, and nearly got its electronics fried, so later craft could keep their distance. (3) When we decide that we need people to make on-the-fly (real-time) decisions, because our artificial-intelligent computers are complete idiots compard to the task needed, the above argument applies to manned craft. The first manned craft will act as a survey ship to scout for dangers later craft will want to avoid, and to scout for interesting things to report back which may modify/influence the programme of later ships. But you say "how can we send a crew on a one-way trip, in virtual isolation?", how can we subject our crew to cruel and unusual punishment? Well, the fun-life of most people consists mostly of (a) TV, (b) interaction with friends&co-workers and office machines (including computers) at work and around the home, and (c) travel to see new and interesting things. Well, TV can be beamed to the crew, with only a month or so delay for Oort-cloud journeys, and with a large crew in a full closed-ecology system all of (b) would be provided. The only problem is (c), where instead of traveling to random places the crew is taking one very long trip to one kind of place. I guess we'll have to get the kind of crew that doesn't want to visit Paris or Rome every so often except by vidiophone/telepresence, and will instead be content at spending the rest of their lifetimes exploring the Oort cloud. Perhaps their children will be picked up by a later-generation craft and moved to a colony around another star, or perhaps back to Earth to find their "roots", or perhaps to a later-generation space probe traveling at relativistic speed to explore a nearby cluster of stars in person. Perhaps their children (original crew's grandchildren) will be picked up again to make a colonization voyage at very-relativistic speeds to M13. Perhaps their children (ggc of original crew) will be picked up yet another time to embark upon colonizing the Magenellic clouds. (Z) We wouldn't want to promise the first crew they'd be on their way to Alpha Centauri, knowing full well they'd arrive 1000 years after a faster ship has goten there and established a colony. But each generation of ship could be used to send more crews a little bit further into the Universe, pushing the frontier a bit further outward and exchanging all the latest information with Earth and with other crews on other ships in different directions at the same time. The time from when they start out until they are overtaken, would not be wasted. ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 09-Jan-84 0303 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #85 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts at MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 85 Today's Topics: Interstellar travel -- will it happen? Challenger Moved to VAB Mission to Mars -- planetary chauvinism Palaces and Pyramids on Mars? Re: Interstellar space travel -- is it possible? BC-REVIEW-ASTRONOMY 2takes (Undated) Re: Astronaut requirements ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 8 January 1984 14:25 EST From: Herb Lin Subject: Interstellar travel -- will it happen? To: dietz%usc-cse @ USC-ECL As I think I pointed out in my last msg to REM, I retract my comment about interchange, but let me respond to your comments anyway. From: dietz%usc-cse%USC-ECL at SRI-NIC I don't understand this objection. What is "interchange", anyway? Interchange is informational, social or commercial intercourse. Communication? Trade? And why should wanting to establish this "interchange" be the only possible reason people could want to undertake I.S.? It certainly isn't the motivation for the US planetary exploration program -- curiosity (& pork barrel politics) is. In the current climate, no one would send a probe without a way of getting information back from it. The only question is how long it would take. Can you imagine a current political leader authorizing a probe that would take a million years to report its findings? It wasn't the motivation for the Pilgrims to come to America. It wasn't the motivation for Magellan to circumnavigate the world. True enough on the Pilgrims. Are you suggesting that space will become a haven for those that are oppressed and persecuted? Then you have to find a way of funding the trip, and oppressed and persecuted people usually have a hard time getting money. Magellan? Would he have gone if he had essentially no hope of returning in his lifetime, of his children's lifetime, or his great-great-great... grandchildren's lifetime? I think not. The fact that the data from these observations would take years to reach earth is unimportant, since there's no other easy way to gather it. You have a far greater faith in the long-term perspectives of humans than I do. Given that it is nearly impossible to get Congress to even consider two year appropriations for ANYTHING, you are talking about a climate for scientific inquiry that I cannot imagine in my wildest dreams. One can easily come up with other motivations. Political or religious rivalry, for example. Some religious systems today have builtin dogma that serves to increase the number of members of that religion (catholicism vs. birth control, for example). A religion that had as one of its precepts the idea of interstellar colonization would also be self propagating. Motivation here could be that holders of certain belief systems desire to have many others agree with them; what better way to do that than to fill up the galaxy with 10^20 true believers? Now this is something I had not considered. You're right about this one. Religious fanatics will do anything. ------------------------------ Date: 7 Jan 84 16:53:24-PST (Sat) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: harpo!eagle!allegra!alice!alb @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Challenger Moved to VAB Challenger was moved to the VAB today in preparation for STS-10. ------------------------------ Date: 8 January 1984 23:26 EST From: Robert E. Bruccoleri Subject: Mission to Mars -- planetary chauvinism To: space @ MIT-MC I also read the Technology Review article on the manned mission to Mars and was deeply disappointed by it. If that turns into NASA's next big space project after a space station and lunar station, it will be crowning waste of effort, opportunity, and time. Like pyramids and palaces. Now that I've got everybody hot under the collar, let me explain what I mean. The biggest problem with a manned Mars mission right now is that it doesn't return very much to earth (so it'd be horrible politically, and we should learn that lesson from Apollo), and most importantly, it won't get many of us into space (I really want to go into space once before my life is up). It's an end unto itself, it doesn't establish much of an infrastructure for doing much else in space, and it could be blown away with a turn of the political wind. The amount of money involved for that Mars mission is probably adequate to get a space settlement started a la O'Neill's High Frontier. His idea being that all you really need to start a settlement that can house thousands of people and build enough solar polar plants to replace earth-based generated electrical is a lunar mass driver, an LEO to L5 (or so) mass driver shuttle, a chemical separation plant for processing lunar ore, and a general purpose manufacturing facility of fairly small capacity. The key point is that the manufacturing facility first be used to construct another separation plant and manufacturing facility (expensive or specialized components would come from earth so the space based technology required is not great), and then one would repeat the doublings enough times until you could crank out anything big you wanted. Settlements, solar power stations, ships, thousands of people living in space, plenty of energy for people on earth, no limits to growth, and no way to stop our exploration and use of space. Plus, a Mars mission would be a piece o' cake. Another point that the Technology Review article assumed was that manned bases should be planets. In fact, it would be cheaper and easier to build a base in space where you don't have to worry about gravity or weather or nightfall. If man does succeed to evolving to a space faring species, he will probably spend most of his time in structures of his own creation in free space because that's where most of the opportunities will lie. ------------------------------ Date: 08 Jan 84 2216 PST From: Ted Anderson Subject: Palaces and Pyramids on Mars? To: space@MIT-MC CC: bruc@MIT-ML I must agree with Robert Bruccoleri's objections to the Technology Review article about a manned mission to Mars. The shorted sightedness of the so-called space-scientists has always annoyed me, since it is one of the few serious divisions among the space enthusiasts. However, I haven't really worried about it until this recent message reminded me that the President's science advisor Keyworth has chastized NASA for not being sufficiently visionary. I have some faith that the NASA administrators will not fail us in this matter it is worth thinking about. In anycase it is probably worth writing a few letters to Technology Review to let them and their readers know that not everyone thinks that Mars is the obvious next step. Cheers, Ted Anderson ------------------------------ Date: 7 Jan 84 19:38:27-PST (Sat) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: ihnp4!cbosgd!cbscc!cbneb!cbnap!whp @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: Interstellar space travel -- is it possible? The motivation for reproduction should not be defended logically. Actually, humans (and I suppose other animals) do not select goals in a logical or even rational manner; in this respect the image many people have of themselves is false. Humans are *not* rational beings, instead they are rationalizing beings. The difference to me is that a ration being would chose completely logical, rational goals and carry them out in a logical and rational way. A rationalizing being choses goals to satisfy biological urges, but attempts to reach that goal through logical means. There is not defensible, imperitave motivation for manned exploration of the universe, but then there is no defensible logial reason for the continued existence of mankind either. The urges to explore, gain territory, etc., are similar to the urge to reproduce. These urges are programmed into our genes and historically seem to have been good survival traits. So it is probably true that many years from now these "stay at home" stick-in-the-muds will die out of the gene pool. I am sure that interstellar will happen despite the arguments of these people when enough people *want* it to happen. W. H. Pollock ------------------------------ Date: 09 Jan 84 0001 PST From: Hans Moravec Subject: BC-REVIEW-ASTRONOMY 2takes (Undated) To: space@MIT-MC n044 1217 08 Jan 84 (The Week in Review) c.1984 N.Y. Times News Service ASTRONOMICAL HIGHLIGHTS OF 1983 - A STELLAR YEAR Old Data Yielded New Insights, New Instruments Unveiled Ancient Phenomena and Earth Waved A Very Long Goodbye to the Satellite Pioneer 10. Earth's rotation is erratic, usually slowing, rarely speeding up. As a result, scientists must insert ''leap seconds'' every few years to keep world clocks in step. An extra second was added last year on June 30. The minute beginning at 7:59 EDT that evening was 61 seconds long. It was the 12th such second to be added since these kinds of adjustments began in 1972, when two leap seconds were added to the year. The variability in the rate of Earth's rotation is believed to be caused by a number of factors, including friction in the planet's atmosphere, in the oceans and in the core. Without much hoopla, the standard for defining all units of length in the world was changed by the General Conference on Weights and Measures in Paris. What has this to do with astronomy? For one, the definition affects the units of force, wavelength and radio frequency. For another, the new standard is based on the speed of light, in part because time-measuring methods are far more precise than those applied to distances. For many decades, all length measurements were based on the meter as defined by the distance between two scratches on a platinum-iridium bar stored in a vault at the International Bureau of Weights and Measures at Sevres, near Paris. Since 1960, length measurements have been based on a more accurate and more readily available standard - the wavelength of orange light emitted by the gas krypton 86. Under the new system, one meter is defined as the distance traveled by light through a vacuum in one-299,792,458th of a second. SOME STORM -A reanalysis of data from the two Voyager spacecraft that passed Saturn revealed recordings of a peculiar static. Astronomers said it was the mark of a gargantuan atmospheric lightning storm 40,000 miles long, wrapping a sixth of the way around the planet (almost twice around Earth) and lasting at least 10 months. -Information collected by Soviet Venera 13 and 14 landing craft, together with data from orbiting Pioneer Venus spacecraft, indicated that Venus should join the list of volcanically active objects in the solar system. The list includes Earth and Jupiter's moon Io. -Triton, a satellite of the planet Neptune, may have a near-global ocean - not of water but of liquid nitrogen. Scientists at the University of Hawaii in Honolulu announced that spectral data had provided ''the first direct evidence for an ocean on an extraterrestrial body'' - that body being Triton. The other leading candidate for an ocean is the Saturnian moon Titan, whose seas are thought to be 70 percent ethane, 25 percent methane and 5 percent nitrogen. SOLAR SIGNS The appearance of twin dust rings around the Sun, hypothesized as early as 1927, was recorded by Japanese astronomers over Indonesia during a solar eclipse. Scientists had theorized that cosmic dust spiraling in toward the Sun would begin to glow as it grew nearer and would continue to do so until close enough to evaporate. Given the geometry of the dust spiral, the glow seems brightest at the outer and inner edges of the zone. The picture was obtained with a video system suspended from a balloon and a computer-based enhancement process. The glowing region lies 900,000 to 1,500,000 miles above the solar surface. Scientists calculated the distance from the Sun at which the inner dust disappeared and used it as an indication of the ring's vaporization temperature. From this, they guessed that the dust is a silicate comparable in composition to quartz. ASTEROID ALERT Asteroids have struck Earth in the past, hurtling from space with such speed that they vaporized on collision. Astronomical and geological observations showed last year that large asteroid collisions can still occur. More than 50 asteroids are known to be in orbits that might send them charging into Earth, and recent samplings of the asteroid population signal that the total number of Earth-threatening asteroids may approach 100,000. Asteroid fragments weighing about 500 tons plunge into the atmosphere, on average once a year, but usually break up before hitting the surface. STAR LIGHTS Infrared Astronomy Satellite, an orbiting observatory launched last January and now out of service, discovered that the star Vega is surrounded by a giant disk or shell of material. Scientists at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory of the California Institute of Technology hailed the discovery as the first direct evidence of solid objects orbiting a star other than the Sun. Some astronomers suggested that the shell may be an early planetary system in formation. Vega is near our solar system, only 26 light years - or about 156 trillion miles - away. It is the brightest star in the constellation Lyra (the Harp) and the third brightest star in the night sky. It is thought to be less than a billion years old, less than one-fourth the age of the Sun and its family of planets. Vega's properties have turned it into an astronomical measuring piece on which scientists train instruments to test equipment sensitivity. That's what astronomers were doing with IRAS when they found the Vegan shell. Data from the infrared satellite also indicate that cool, solid material may be orbiting the star called Fomalhaut, the brightest star in the constellation Piscis Austrinus and one of the 20 brightest in the heavens. It can be seen in the winter sky with the unaided eye. THE UNIVERSE... A new variation on a recent theme of the cosmos' formation, the ''inflationary universe,'' was unveiled. The revised inflationary model postulates, in part, that the universe did not start with a big bang, but bubbled up out of virtually nothing and then suddenly inflated to astronomical proportions. Dr.Alan H. Guth of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology proposed the first inflationary model several years ago. Meanwhile, cosmic surveys by the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, along with some fancy computer modeling, led cosmologists to picture the current universe as a piece of Swiss cheese, with the force of gravity making particles of matter clump together into long filaments and flat, pancake-like structures. Between these areas of dense matter are bubbles of largely empty space. The model assumes that neutrinos, atomic particles thought to constitute about 90 percent of all matter in the universe, have some mass and therefore clump together. ...AND BEYOND Pioneer 10, the satellite launched March 3, 1972 from Cape Canaveral, Fla., left the outer limits of the planetary system. No human artifact had ever traveled so far. Its next stop - no one knows. According to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, ground-based antennas should maintain communications for eight years more, to a distance of five billion miles. Scientists hope that in the time remaining the satellite will detect gravity waves, the gravitational radiation that in theory emanates from cataclysmic events, such as exploding stars, but in practice has not been found. When it does turn a blind eye toward Earth, the craft will carry on with a message for passersby - a plaque engraved with images of a man, a woman, Earth's location and some terrestrial scientific ABC's. In November 1988, the satellite Voyager 1, which was launched five and a half years ago, will become the first spacecraft to cross the orbits of all nine planets in the solar system. (Pioneer's path took it outside Pluto's orbit.) Voyager 2 and Pioneer 11 are also swinging out beyond the outer planets. METEORIC RISE The Murchison meteorite, which fell on Australia in 1969, gave up one of its greatest secrets - that it contains the five chemical bases of human genes. Scientists at the University of Maryland's Laboratory of Chemical Evolution said their detection of the bases - precursors of life - and their ability to synthesize all five in a single experiment simulating primordial conditions on Earth, boosted the theory that terrestrial life arose by comparatively simple, natural chemical processes. Their success further suggested that life may have arisen by the same processes elsewhere in the universe, wherever the appropriate conditions existed. COMET TRIALS A new comet, named for its discoverers Sugano-Saigusa-Fujikawa, and passing unusually close to Earth, was discovered as another comet, IRAS-Araki-Alcock, receded from Earth. IRAS-Araki-Alcock passed within 2.9 million miles of the planet - closer than any other comet since 1770. Sugano-Saigusa-Fugikawa came within about 6 million miles. Astronomers also estimated that the total number of comets roaming the outer reaches of the solar system, beyond the outer planets, may be at least 2 trillion - far more than the 100 billion previously imagined. The recalculation resulted in part from the discovery of several comets traversing the inner solar system. Most comets were thought to be slowly circling the Sun far beyond the outer planets. Finding these inner system trespassers hinted that other comets are nearby successfully escaping detection from Earth. nyt-01-08-84 1521est *************** ------------------------------ Date: 7 Jan 84 21:00:00-PST (Sat) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: decvax!genrad!security!linus!utzoo!watmath!looking!brad @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: Astronaut requirements In-Reply-To: Article <15152@sri-arpa.UUCP> It interests me that all astronaut requirements ask for people in the peak of physical health. Now, while there is nothing wrong with good health, I think they should deliberately send up people with average health. (I am not referring to the astronauts but rather to the mission specialists) All these space-sickness experiments being performed right now are going on with prime physical specimens. We need to find out what the effects of space are on out-of-shape people, too. Thus people should not be rejected from the mission specialist program just because they don't run twenty miles a day. -- Brad Templeton - Waterloo, Ontario (519) 886-7304 ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 10-Jan-84 0302 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #86 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts at MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 86 Today's Topics: Undeliverable mail Re: Terraforming? Astroforming! - (nf) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 9 Jan 84 03:29:32 PST From: Mail Handler Subject: Undeliverable mail In-Reply-To: Your message of 09 Jan 84 0303 PST To: Space-Enthusiasts at MIT-MC ===== POSTMAN output follows ===== AERROR - (n < SLOCKTRIES) CAN NOT GET LCK.SEQL mailers/ucla: error writing to UMAIL "v.Burris": not delivered ===== unsent message follows ===== Date: 09 Jan 84 0303 PST From: Ted Anderson Subject: SPACE Digest V4 #85 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts at MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 85 Today's Topics: Interstellar travel -- will it happen? Challenger Moved to VAB Mission to Mars -- planetary chauvinism Palaces and Pyramids on Mars? Re: Interstellar space travel -- is it possible? BC-REVIEW-ASTRONOMY 2takes (Undated) Re: Astronaut requirements ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 8 January 1984 14:25 EST From: Herb Lin Subject: Interstellar travel -- will it happen? To: dietz%usc-cse @ USC-ECL As I think I pointed out in my last msg to REM, I retract my comment about interchange, but let me respond to your comments anyway. From: dietz%usc-cse%USC-ECL at SRI-NIC I don't understand this objection. What is "interchange", anyway? Interchange is informational, social or commercial intercourse. Communication? Trade? And why should wanting to establish this "interchange" be the only possible reason people could want to undertake I.S.? It certainly isn't the motivation for the US planetary exploration program -- curiosity (& pork barrel politics) is. In the current climate, no one would send a probe without a way of getting information back from it. The only question is how long it would take. Can you imagine a current political leader authorizing a probe that would take a million years to report its findings? It wasn't the motivation for the Pilgrims to come to America. It wasn't the motivation for Magellan to circumnavigate the world. True enough on the Pilgrims. Are you suggesting that space will become a haven for those that are oppressed and persecuted? Then you have to find a way of funding the trip, and oppressed and persecuted people usually have a hard time getting money. Magellan? Would he have gone if he had essentially no hope of returning in his lifetime, of his children's lifetime, or his great-great-great... grandchildren's lifetime? I think not. The fact that the data from these observations would take years to reach earth is unimportant, since there's no other easy way to gather it. You have a far greater faith in the long-term perspectives of humans than I do. Given that it is nearly impossible to get Congress to even consider two year appropriations for ANYTHING, you are talking about a climate for scientific inquiry that I cannot imagine in my wildest dreams. One can easily come up with other motivations. Political or religious rivalry, for example. Some religious systems today have builtin dogma that serves to increase the number of members of that religion (catholicism vs. birth control, for example). A religion that had as one of its precepts the idea of interstellar colonization would also be self propagating. Motivation here could be that holders of certain belief systems desire to have many others agree with them; what better way to do that than to fill up the galaxy with 10^20 true believers? Now this is something I had not considered. You're right about this one. Religious fanatics will do anything. ------------------------------ Date: 7 Jan 84 16:53:24-PST (Sat) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: harpo!eagle!allegra!alice!alb @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Challenger Moved to VAB Challenger was moved to the VAB today in preparation for STS-10. ------------------------------ Date: 8 January 1984 23:26 EST From: Robert E. Bruccoleri Subject: Mission to Mars -- planetary chauvinism To: space @ MIT-MC I also read the Technology Review article on the manned mission to Mars and was deeply disappointed by it. If that turns into NASA's next big space project after a space station and lunar station, it will be crowning waste of effort, opportunity, and time. Like pyramids and palaces. Now that I've got everybody hot under the collar, let me explain what I mean. The biggest problem with a manned Mars mission right now is that it doesn't return very much to earth (so it'd be horrible politically, and we should learn that lesson from Apollo), and most importantly, it won't get many of us into space (I really want to go into space once before my life is up). It's an end unto itself, it doesn't establish much of an infrastructure for doing much else in space, and it could be blown away with a turn of the political wind. The amount of money involved for that Mars mission is probably adequate to get a space settlement started a la O'Neill's High Frontier. His idea being that all you really need to start a settlement that can house thousands of people and build enough solar polar plants to replace earth-based generated electrical is a lunar mass driver, an LEO to L5 (or so) mass driver shuttle, a chemical separation plant for processing lunar ore, and a general purpose manufacturing facility of fairly small capacity. The key point is that the manufacturing facility first be used to construct another separation plant and manufacturing facility (expensive or specialized components would come from earth so the space based technology required is not great), and then one would repeat the doublings enough times until you could crank out anything big you wanted. Settlements, solar power stations, ships, thousands of people living in space, plenty of energy for people on earth, no limits to growth, and no way to stop our exploration and use of space. Plus, a Mars mission would be a piece o' cake. Another point that the Technology Review article assumed was that manned bases should be planets. In fact, it would be cheaper and easier to build a base in space where you don't have to worry about gravity or weather or nightfall. If man does succeed to evolving to a space faring species, he will probably spend most of his time in structures of his own creation in free space because that's where most of the opportunities will lie. ------------------------------ Date: 08 Jan 84 2216 PST From: Ted Anderson Subject: Palaces and Pyramids on Mars? To: space@MIT-MC CC: bruc@MIT-ML I must agree with Robert Bruccoleri's objections to the Technology Review article about a manned mission to Mars. The shorted sightedness of the so-called space-scientists has always annoyed me, since it is one of the few serious divisions among the space enthusiasts. However, I haven't really worried about it until this recent message reminded me that the President's science advisor Keyworth has chastized NASA for not being sufficiently visionary. I have some faith that the NASA administrators will not fail us in this matter it is worth thinking about. In anycase it is probably worth writing a few letters to Technology Review to let them and their readers know that not everyone thinks that Mars is the obvious next step. Cheers, Ted Anderson ------------------------------ Date: 7 Jan 84 19:38:27-PST (Sat) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: ihnp4!cbosgd!cbscc!cbneb!cbnap!whp @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: Interstellar space travel -- is it possible? The motivation for reproduction should not be defended logically. Actually, humans (and I suppose other animals) do not select goals in a logical or even rational manner; in this respect the image many people have of themselves is false. Humans are *not* rational beings, instead they are rationalizing beings. The difference to me is that a ration being would chose completely logical, rational goals and carry them out in a logical and rational way. A rationalizing being choses goals to satisfy biological urges, but attempts to reach that goal through logical means. There is not defensible, imperitave motivation for manned exploration of the universe, but then there is no defensible logial reason for the continued existence of mankind either. The urges to explore, gain territory, etc., are similar to the urge to reproduce. These urges are programmed into our genes and historically seem to have been good survival traits. So it is probably true that many years from now these "stay at home" stick-in-the-muds will die out of the gene pool. I am sure that interstellar will happen despite the arguments of these people when enough people *want* it to happen. W. H. Pollock ------------------------------ Date: 09 Jan 84 0001 PST From: Hans Moravec Subject: BC-REVIEW-ASTRONOMY 2takes (Undated) To: space@MIT-MC n044 1217 08 Jan 84 (The Week in Review) c.1984 N.Y. Times News Service ASTRONOMICAL HIGHLIGHTS OF 1983 - A STELLAR YEAR Old Data Yielded New Insights, New Instruments Unveiled Ancient Phenomena and Earth Waved A Very Long Goodbye to the Satellite Pioneer 10. Earth's rotation is erratic, usually slowing, rarely speeding up. As a result, scientists must insert ''leap seconds'' every few years to keep world clocks in step. An extra second was added last year on June 30. The minute beginning at 7:59 EDT that evening was 61 seconds long. It was the 12th such second to be added since these kinds of adjustments began in 1972, when two leap seconds were added to the year. The variability in the rate of Earth's rotation is believed to be caused by a number of factors, including friction in the planet's atmosphere, in the oceans and in the core. Without much hoopla, the standard for defining all units of length in the world was changed by the General Conference on Weights and Measures in Paris. What has this to do with astronomy? For one, the definition affects the units of force, wavelength and radio frequency. For another, the new standard is based on the speed of light, in part because time-measuring methods are far more precise than those applied to distances. For many decades, all length measurements were based on the meter as defined by the distance between two scratches on a platinum-iridium bar stored in a vault at the International Bureau of Weights and Measures at Sevres, near Paris. Since 1960, length measurements have been based on a more accurate and more readily available standard - the wavelength of orange light emitted by the gas krypton 86. Under the new system, one meter is defined as the distance traveled by light through a vacuum in one-299,792,458th of a second. SOME STORM -A reanalysis of data from the two Voyager spacecraft that passed Saturn revealed recordings of a peculiar static. Astronomers said it was the mark of a gargantuan atmospheric lightning storm 40,000 miles long, wrapping a sixth of the way around the planet (almost twice around Earth) and lasting at least 10 months. -Information collected by Soviet Venera 13 and 14 landing craft, together with data from orbiting Pioneer Venus spacecraft, indicated that Venus should join the list of volcanically active objects in the solar system. The list includes Earth and Jupiter's moon Io. -Triton, a satellite of the planet Neptune, may have a near-global ocean - not of water but of liquid nitrogen. Scientists at the University of Hawaii in Honolulu announced that spectral data had provided ''the first direct evidence for an ocean on an extraterrestrial body'' - that body being Triton. The other leading candidate for an ocean is the Saturnian moon Titan, whose seas are thought to be 70 percent ethane, 25 percent methane and 5 percent nitrogen. SOLAR SIGNS The appearance of twin dust rings around the Sun, hypothesized as early as 1927, was recorded by Japanese astronomers over Indonesia during a solar eclipse. Scientists had theorized that cosmic dust spiraling in toward the Sun would begin to glow as it grew nearer and would continue to do so until close enough to evaporate. Given the geometry of the dust spiral, the glow seems brightest at the outer and inner edges of the zone. The picture was obtained with a video system suspended from a balloon and a computer-based enhancement process. The glowing region lies 900,000 to 1,500,000 miles above the solar surface. Scientists calculated the distance from the Sun at which the inner dust disappeared and used it as an indication of the ring's vaporization temperature. From this, they guessed that the dust is a silicate comparable in composition to quartz. ASTEROID ALERT Asteroids have struck Earth in the past, hurtling from space with such speed that they vaporized on collision. Astronomical and geological observations showed last year that large asteroid collisions can still occur. More than 50 asteroids are known to be in orbits that might send them charging into Earth, and recent samplings of the asteroid population signal that the total number of Earth-threatening asteroids may approach 100,000. Asteroid fragments weighing about 500 tons plunge into the atmosphere, on average once a year, but usually break up before hitting the surface. STAR LIGHTS Infrared Astronomy Satellite, an orbiting observatory launched last January and now out of service, discovered that the star Vega is surrounded by a giant disk or shell of material. Scientists at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory of the California Institute of Technology hailed the discovery as the first direct evidence of solid objects orbiting a star other than the Sun. Some astronomers suggested that the shell may be an early planetary system in formation. Vega is near our solar system, only 26 light years - or about 156 trillion miles - away. It is the brightest star in the constellation Lyra (the Harp) and the third brightest star in the night sky. It is thought to be less than a billion years old, less than one-fourth the age of the Sun and its family of planets. Vega's properties have turned it into an astronomical measuring piece on which scientists train instruments to test equipment sensitivity. That's what astronomers were doing with IRAS when they found the Vegan shell. Data from the infrared satellite also indicate that cool, solid material may be orbiting the star called Fomalhaut, the brightest star in the constellation Piscis Austrinus and one of the 20 brightest in the heavens. It can be seen in the winter sky with the unaided eye. THE UNIVERSE... A new variation on a recent theme of the cosmos' formation, the ''inflationary universe,'' was unveiled. The revised inflationary model postulates, in part, that the universe did not start with a big bang, but bubbled up out of virtually nothing and then suddenly inflated to astronomical proportions. Dr.Alan H. Guth of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology proposed the first inflationary model several years ago. Meanwhile, cosmic surveys by the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, along with some fancy computer modeling, led cosmologists to picture the current universe as a piece of Swiss cheese, with the force of gravity making particles of matter clump together into long filaments and flat, pancake-like structures. Between these areas of dense matter are bubbles of largely empty space. The model assumes that neutrinos, atomic particles thought to constitute about 90 percent of all matter in the universe, have some mass and therefore clump together. ...AND BEYOND Pioneer 10, the satellite launched March 3, 1972 from Cape Canaveral, Fla., left the outer limits of the planetary system. No human artifact had ever traveled so far. Its next stop - no one knows. According to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, ground-based antennas should maintain communications for eight years more, to a distance of five billion miles. Scientists hope that in the time remaining the satellite will detect gravity waves, the gravitational radiation that in theory emanates from cataclysmic events, such as exploding stars, but in practice has not been found. When it does turn a blind eye toward Earth, the craft will carry on with a message for passersby - a plaque engraved with images of a man, a woman, Earth's location and some terrestrial scientific ABC's. In November 1988, the satellite Voyager 1, which was launched five and a half years ago, will become the first spacecraft to cross the orbits of all nine planets in the solar system. (Pioneer's path took it outside Pluto's orbit.) Voyager 2 and Pioneer 11 are also swinging out beyond the outer planets. METEORIC RISE The Murchison meteorite, which fell on Australia in 1969, gave up one of its greatest secrets - that it contains the five chemical bases of human genes. Scientists at the University of Maryland's Laboratory of Chemical Evolution said their detection of the bases - precursors of life - and their ability to synthesize all five in a single experiment simulating primordial conditions on Earth, boosted the theory that terrestrial life arose by comparatively simple, natural chemical processes. Their success further suggested that life may have arisen by the same processes elsewhere in the universe, wherever the appropriate conditions existed. COMET TRIALS A new comet, named for its discoverers Sugano-Saigusa-Fujikawa, and passing unusually close to Earth, was discovered as another comet, IRAS-Araki-Alcock, receded from Earth. IRAS-Araki-Alcock passed within 2.9 million miles of the planet - closer than any other comet since 1770. Sugano-Saigusa-Fugikawa came within about 6 million miles. Astronomers also estimated that the total number of comets roaming the outer reaches of the solar system, beyond the outer planets, may be at least 2 trillion - far more than the 100 billion previously imagined. The recalculation resulted in part from the discovery of several comets traversing the inner solar system. Most comets were thought to be slowly circling the Sun far beyond the outer planets. Finding these inner system trespassers hinted that other comets are nearby successfully escaping detection from Earth. nyt-01-08-84 1521est *************** ------------------------------ Date: 7 Jan 84 21:00:00-PST (Sat) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: decvax!genrad!security!linus!utzoo!watmath!looking!brad @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: Astronaut requirements In-Reply-To: Article <15152@sri-arpa.UUCP> It interests me that all astronaut requirements ask for people in the peak of physical health. Now, while there is nothing wrong with good health, I think they should deliberately send up people with average health. (I am not referring to the astronauts but rather to the mission specialists) All these space-sickness experiments being performed right now are going on with prime physical specimens. We need to find out what the effects of space are on out-of-shape people, too. Thus people should not be rejected from the mission specialist program just because they don't run twenty miles a day. -- Brad Templeton - Waterloo, Ontario (519) 886-7304 ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* ------------------------------ Date: 7 Jan 84 21:54:19-PST (Sat) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: hplabs!zehntel!tektronix!ucbcad!ucbesvax.turner @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: Terraforming? Astroforming! - (nf) #R:sri-arpa:-1506300:ucbesvax:8700011:000:393 ucbesvax!turner Jan 7 18:30:00 1984 The idea of igniting a self-sustaining fusion process in the Jovian core (thereby turning our solar system into a binary-star system) is interesting--but would not make the Jovian planets more habitable. There is already too much radiation coming from Jupiter to make surface life on the larger (inner) planets of that system a working proposition. --- Michael Turner (ucbvax!ucbesvax.turner) ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 11-Jan-84 0303 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #87 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts at MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 87 Today's Topics: Re: Terraforming? Astroforming! Apology for UCLA mail hiccup in V4 #86 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 10 Jan 1984 8:20-PST From: dietz%usc-cse%USC-ECL@SRI-NIC To: space@mit-mc Cc: randvax!decvax!ucbvax!ucbesvax.turner%Usc-Cse%USC-ECL@SRI-NIC Subject: Re: Terraforming? Astroforming! Via: Usc-Cse; 10 Jan 84 08:37:32 (ucbvax!usbesvax.turner) The idea of igniting a self-sustaining fusion process in the Jovian core (thereby turning our solar system into a binary-star system) is interesting--but would not make the Jovian planets more habitable. There is already too much radiation coming from Jupiter to make surface life on the larger (inner) planets of that system a working proposition. Actually, I wasn't proposing igniting Jupiter, just heating it up a bit. Remove the catalyst and it'll cool down again. Jupiter is much too cold to emit any harmful radiation (the harmful UV from the sun comes from the corona, not the surface). The radiation you're referring to is the swarm of high energy particles trapped in Jupiter's magnetic field. Compared to heating Jupiter, getting rid of these particles is a trivial problem. One technique is to create a ring around Jupiter by pulverizing an asteroid. The ring particles absorb the high energy electrons and protons (as they do around Saturn). Distortions can be induced in planetary magnetospheres, causing trapped particles to hit the planet. This was done around Earth in the 1960's with nuclear explosions. The terraformed jovian moons could be equiped with artificial magnetic fields. The core of Jupiter could be heated in such a way as to manipulate convection there, altering the Jovian magnetic field to reduce particle trapping. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 10 Jan 84 10:02:45 PST From: Rich Wales To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC Subject: Apology for UCLA mail hiccup in V4 #86 Due to a transient system problem on the ARPANET host UCLA-CS, the en- tire contents of Volume 4, Issue 85 of the SPACE digest was accidentally returned as undeliverable -- which caused it to be retransmitted as part of Volume 4, Issue 86. The problem in question has since been fixed. My apologies for any in- convenience caused thereby. -- Rich Wales (UCLA Computer Science Department mail guru) ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 12-Jan-84 0303 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #88 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts at MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 88 Today's Topics: height requirements Lunar landings, cold mining, launchings Why nuke planets? Re: Deuterium on Venus ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wednesday, 11 January 1984 09:34 est From: Chris Jones Subject: height requirements To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC.ARPA Message-ID: <840111143423.136768@MIT-MULTICS.ARPA> re the comment "All space suits are custom made": not true anymore! The era of off the rack space suits has arrived. According to the Space Shuttle Operator's Hnadbook, suits come in "several" standard sizes, with straps inside to adjust them for fit. They don't say how many "several" is, but do mention that there are fifteen glove sizes available. Still, I don't see this as preventing people who are too small for any of the standard sizes from riding the shuttle, since only two crew members are equipped with suits, while the rest have to climb into those rescue balls in the event of cabin decompression. ------------------------------ Date: 11 Jan 1984 11:03-PST From: dietz%usc-cse%USC-ECL@SRI-NIC To: space@mit-mc Subject: Lunar landings, cold mining, launchings Last month I sent a message describing an idea by Krafft Ehricke to land payloads on the lunar surface. It involved skidding the payloads on a long strip of lunar soil at orbital velocity (about 1650 m/sec). A difficulty is sifting the lunar soil to remove rocks from the top 1/2 to 1 meter. But this may not be necessary. The rocks could be removed by a special vehicle. The vehicle would have pipes that would be extended several meters into the lunar soil. Around the outside of the vehicle is a gas-tight skirt that would be anchored in the soil. Gas would be injected into the lunar soil through the pipes. Sufficient gas flow would liquify the soil, causing large objects such as rocks to sink. Smaller soil particles would be buoyed by the gas flow. Gas would be collected under the skirt for recirculation. Care must be taken not to let the vehicle sink. Subsurface lunar soil is quite cold, so the gas will have to reheated, probably with sunlight. Or, the cold gas could be used as a heat sink to increase the efficiency of solar powered heat engines. Another way to sift the soil would be to give the soil particles electrical charges. The particles repel one another, allowing large rocks to sink. This suggest a novel form of earth moving possible only in a vacuum: spray the soil to be removed with an electron beam while giving a soil collector a positive charge. Lack of moving parts should help reliability. I previously proposed using an aluminum strip to levitate rockets for lunar launches. Samarium-cobalt magnets should be sufficiently light to make the scheme practical. For extra efficiency, high launch accelerations could be used (10 gee's, say), and the strip could be covered by a gas-tight tunnel ~14 km long. The rocket would use lunar oxygen and imported hydrogen as fuel; the water produced by combustion would be trapped in the tunnel, recovered and the hydrogen recycled. The tunnel would have gas tight doors on the east end which would close after launch to trap the water. This scheme will help keep a lunar atmosphere from developing. ------------------------------ Date: Wed 11 Jan 84 21:13:58-EST From: Anthony J. Courtemanche Subject: Why nuke planets? To: space-enthusiasts@MIT-MC I hope I do not sound like I'm flaming but I am a bit concerned with this talk of significantly altering our solar system. What gives us the right to nuke Venus or any other planet or moon in the hopes that it will make it habitable? We have done much to destroy Terra's ecology, so now we must work on other places??!! It seems to me that until Mankind learns to be responsible enough to take care of his own planet, he should lay off trying to change other planets to suit his needs. Anthony ac@mit-oz ------- ------------------------------ Date: 10 Jan 84 16:29:28-PST (Tue) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: decvax!duke!ucf-cs!giles @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: Deuterium on Venus In-Reply-To: Article <14945@sri-arpa.UUCP> 3 January 1984, <730@ssc-vax.UUCP> Let us say you wanted to raise the temperature by a factor of 4. This requires 64 times as much incident intensity. Assume that this is gotten from solar sails in Venus vicinity. They need a total surface area of 7.24 billion km**2. If their thickness is .15 microns, then the volume of material required is only 1.1 km**3, not an unreasonable quantity. And we wave a fond farewell to the lightsails as they accelerate into the darkness of interstellar space. (may not make too much sense towards the end, but it sounds good) (hint: divide 7.24 billion km**2 light pressure at Venus by the mass of 1.1 km**3 of material, and use F = ma). Bruce Giles --------------------------------------------- UUCP: decvax!ucf-cs!giles cs-net: giles@ucf ARPA: giles.ucf-cs@Rand-Relay Snail: University of Central Florida Dept of Math, POB 26000 Orlando Fl 32816 --------------------------------------------- ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 13-Jan-84 0303 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #89 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts at MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 89 Today's Topics: Re: Space Highlights of 1983 What about Cavemen? terraforming Re: Terraforming? Astroforming! "Rights" of planets? Venus Planet rights. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 10 Jan 84 9:42:18-PST (Tue) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: ihnp4!ihdev!rck @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: Space Highlights of 1983 > . . . > > Earth's rotation is erratic, usually slowing, rarely speeding up. As > result, scientists must insert ''leap seconds'' every few years to > keep world clocks in step. > > . . . Question: When has it ever been necessary to REMOVE ''leap seconds''? R. C. Kukuk ------------------------------ Date: 10 Jan 84 16:16:43-PST (Tue) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: ihnp4!ihuxp!wbpesch @ Ucb-Vax Subject: What about Cavemen? We talk about orbitting space stations, going to build a lunar Base, going on manned Mars Missions, etc. It seems to me that the easiest way to go for a long time/permanent stay in space would be through asteroids. Wouldn't it be easier to use a low-level neuclear device to blast a hole (cave) in an asteroid. Come back in three years. the heat from the detonation should have fused the walls giving an air-tight seal. Put in an airlock, and pump in air, and you have living quarters. Put a few solar panels in on the surface, and you have power. Crush some of the rocks, and you have soil, and plant and you have crops. We can recycle the water, or perhaps find a water pocket on that asteroid, or on a nearby asteroid. Does this seem so unreasonable. I would also say that it is probable as possible to get from here to the asteroid belt as it is to get from here to the gravity well of Mars, and back out of the gravity well again. Well, where are the holes in my arguement, or then why aren't they doing it? Walt Pesch AT&T Western Electric AT&T Technologies ihnp4!ihuxp!wbpesch ------------------------------ Date: 9 Jan 84 21:55:47-PST (Mon) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: menlo70!ames-lm!al @ Ucb-Vax Subject: terraforming Why mess around with terraforming? It looks expensive, dangerous, and somewhat useless. How about staying up in our space colonies with variable gravity, 24 hour a day sunshine, controlled climate, and all the comforts of home. We can enjoy the view, get ready for generational ships to the asteroid field of Vega, and maybe avoid screwing the solar system up. I must admit terraforming is fun to speculate on, but lets keep it theoretical folks. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 11 Jan 84 15:04:00 PST From: David Alpern Return-Path: Subject: Re: Terraforming? Astroforming! To: Space-Enthusiasts@Mit-Mc In-Reply-To: Message of 10 Jan 1984 8:20-PST from dietz%usc-cse%USC-ECL@Sri-Nic .... Distortions can be induced in planetary magnetospheres, causing trapped particles to hit the planet. This was done around Earth in the 1960's with nuclear explosions.... It was???? I'd be interested in hearing more about this. Was this a side effect of some of the missile testing, or was this done on purpose? If the latter, why? - Dave ------------------------------ Date: 12 Jan 1984 7:10-PST From: dietz%usc-cse%USC-ECL@SRI-NIC To: ac%mit-oz@mit-mc Cc: space@mit-mc Subject: "Rights" of planets? What gives us the right to nuke Venus or any other planet or moon in the hopes that it will make it habitable? We have done much to destroy Terra's ecology, so now we must work on other places??!! It seems to me that until Mankind learns to be responsible enough to take care of his own planet, he should lay off trying to change other planets to suit his needs. One could argue that since Man has messed up Earth, we should try to make up for it by building ecologies on previously lifeless planets. I disagree strongly with the idea that inanimate matter has "rights", as you seem to imply. Absent this idea, it's hard to object to terraforming, except perhaps for esthetic reasons. ------------------------------ Date: 12 Jan 1984 7:35-PST From: dietz%usc-cse%USC-ECL@SRI-NIC To: space@mit-mc Subject: Venus A excellent book on Venus (title "Venus") has just been published by the U. of Arizona Press. Authors are Hunten, Colin, Donahue and Moroz. It's over 1100 pages long and is *the* source book for Venus data. About terraforming Venus: Oberg has proposed terraforming the planet with sunshades and imported hydrogen from the moons of Saturn (Phoebe looks good, the rings are too deep in Saturn's gravity well). I notice that an intermediate stage in the terraforming process would involve a high pressure ocean on Venus's surface, with a temperature of 200-260 degrees C. Importing only a fraction of the hydrogen necessary for full terraforming would still give some surface water, which would be fairly acidic. Water (especially high temperature acidic water) is vital to most ore-forming processes on Earth (gold, for example, is concentrated by superheated water to form "hydrothermal" deposits); on Venus, the newly condensed oceans would circulate through the still hot subsurface rocks, generating massive fluid flow, steam, geysers, etc. As a result, rare elements could very well become highly concentrated in ore deposits on Venus's surface. These concentration processes cannot take place in asteroids or the moon, so Venus, Earth and Mars may be the only sources of concentrated rare elements in the solar system. The ore formation process would be accelerated by fracturing Venus's crust (to increase the surface area of the water/rock interface); asteroid impacts or nuclear explosions would do the trick. If it turns out that Venus's crust is deficient in desired heavy elements then asteroids could be landed there to "cook" in the ocean. Someone who objects to terraforming Venus is really going to object to turning Venus into a mega-stripmine. The economic justification looks good, though, even if space colonies make terraforming for colonization redundant. ------------------------------ Date: Thu 12 Jan 84 12:30:10-EST From: Anthony J. Courtemanche Subject: Planet rights. To: dietz%usc-cse%usc-ecl@SRI-NIC.ARPA cc: space@MIT-MC My point was not that planets have rights. My point is that ruining the earth is not a good basis for trying things out on another planet. Until Mankind can restore what he has destroyed, and DOES RESTORE HIS DESTRUCTION, I don't think he is in any shape to try and start anew somewhere else. I would rather wait till we prove to ourselves that we can be responsible with our world before spreading our cancer to another one. Would you like to prolong man's survival at the expence of disposible planets or would you like a responsible civilization that can survive with what it has? I prefer the latter. Anthony ac@mit-oz ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 14-Jan-84 0302 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #90 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts at MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 90 Today's Topics: Cavemen, terraforming, magnetosphere Shuttle launch Spectator Re: Re: Interstellar manned spaceflight - (nf) Apollo Trivia Magnetic torque ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 13 Jan 1984 7:30-PST From: dietz%usc-cse%USC-ECL@SRI-NIC To: space@mit-mc Subject: Cavemen, terraforming, magnetosphere ihnp4!ihuxp!wbpesch @ Ucb-Vax: Wouldn't it be easier [to use asteroids]? I think the problem with asteroids is that they're hard to move. The current asteroid recovery schemes involve bringing back to Earth orbit a 100 meter diameter carbonaceous asteroid massing one to two million tons. Also, exploding a nuclear bomb inside an asteroid will probably destroy the asteroid, not carve out a hole, unless the blast is deep inside a large asteroid. Underground nuclear blasts on Earth are kept confined by the weight of the overlying rock. Asteroid recovery from the asteroid belt is currently not feasible, due to the large delta-vee and long flight times required. Earth-crossers are another matter; some recently discovered Apollo-Amor asteroids look very attractive as sources of siderophile metals (such as platinum), and many more will be discovered. Unmanned asteroid probes are needed before billions are spent on a manned mission, if only to find out for sure what the things are made of. menlo!ames-lm!al @Ucb-Vax Why mess around with terraforming? Why indeed? I personally prefer space colonies. It's interesting to note that it *can* be done, if people want to pay for it. As a previous message stated there may be reasons for partially terraforming Venus even if no one wants to live there. To David Alpern (Alpern.Ibm-Sj@Rand-Relay): The explosion of nuclear devices in the ionosphere occured in the 1961-1963 in Projects Argus and Starfish. Exploded at alltitudes of 100 km, the explosions dumped lots of charged particles into the ionosphere, which in some cases caused the Earth's radiation belts to overload and collapse. ------------------------------ Date: 10 Jan 84 14:23:03-PST (Tue) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: harpo!floyd!cmcl2!lanl-a!ths @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Shuttle launch Spectator Can anyone tell me how to go about getting a "reservation" for the VIP area to view a shuttle launch at the Cape? ------------------------------ Date: 12 Jan 84 1:27:09-PST (Thu) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: ihnp4!zehntel!root @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: Re: Interstellar manned spaceflight - (nf) "Someone recently commented that manned, intercontinental trips would be made before the turn of the century. I agree that the technology will be available, and the question of "Why?" doesn't bother me. The problem is that, assuming that faster-than-wind travel is not available, by the time the ocean travellers get anywhere in their 15th century ship, they will have been passed by 16th century travellers using more advanced, 16th century transportation systems. The early travellers would waste several years, only to arrive at an already established colony. "It's one thing to test out hardware in lake missions or Europe-Britain missions, but missions that never return are another story. That's why it was feasible to send longboats crafts to Iceland, rather than simply waiting for the clipper ship. Intercontinental travel is a situation where I think we should wait for reasonable technology. The first river crossing wasn't on a log. The first manned, deep ocean crossing shouldn't be in a primitive craft either." --Gary I've got news for you Gary. By all accounts, the first ocean crossings were done either by the Phoenicians in something very much like a large canoe, or by the Polynesians in a RAFT. If everyone thought like you we'd never get anything done. Berry Kercheval Zehntel Inc. (ihnp4!zehntel!zinfandel!berry) (415)932-6900 ------------------------------ Date: 13 January 1984 22:21 EST From: Robert E. Bruccoleri To: ac @ MIT-OZ cc: space @ MIT-MC Frankly, I don't see any way of restoring the earth's ecology to a more healthly state unless we tap extra-terrestrial resources soon. We do not have the energy capacity in easily accessible form that will permit the improvements in standards of living for most of the world so that population growth can be stopped. (Rich, educated people have few children than poor, illiterate ones and energy will be at the root of future development) To clean up the various industries responsible for pollution, we also need cheap energy. Because I can't go into detail about these arguments, I refer you to Gerard K. O'Neill's The High Frontier which addresses many of the points you raised although from a much more optimistic and pragmatic point of view. I would opt for good living rather than just surviving; I would opt for good living for all of mankind, not just Europe, North America, and the Western Pacific; I would opt for a living earth getting resources from lifeless asteroids and planets. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 13 Jan 84 08:36 EST From: Alexander Wolf Return-Path: Subject: Apollo Trivia To: space@mit-mc Via: UMASS-CS; 13 Jan 84 19:46-EST I was once told that Armstrong's famous "first words" were not, as commonly accepted, "This is one small step for Man, one giant leap for Mankind," but rather "This is one small step for *a* man, one giant leap for Mankind. (note the article "a"). Apparently the voice-activated transmitter ate the "a." To me, the latter version makes more sense anyway (what's the real difference between Man and Mankind?). Can anyone confirm or deny this for me? Alex. ------------------------------ Date: 14 Jan 84 0025 PST From: Hans Moravec Subject: Magnetic torque To: space@MIT-MC n009 0652 13 Jan 84 BC-PATENTS-COLUMN (BizDay) By STACY V. JONES c.1984 N.Y. Times News Service WASHINGTON - Improved control of its communication satellites that orbit around the world has been invented for the RCA Corp. Patent 4,424,948, assigned to the company, was granted this week to three technical staff members. The system is called magnetic torquing. One problem frequently encountered by spacecraft is nutation, or undesirable wobbling, and another is the need to maintain proper attitude, or pointing, of the craft. Magnetic torquing, an answer to both problems, involves passing current through coils on the satellite, which interacts with the earth's magnetic field. The roll and yaw errors are minimized. The inventors are Ludwig Muhlfelder and Kevin J. Phillips of the RCA Astroelectronics Division in East Windsor, N.J., and Steven L. Blasnik of Cambridge, Mass. Since 1958, RCA has launched 82 satellites and 12 of them are still in operation. Those most recently launched are called Satcoms, and the invention has been installed in five of these. Space is leased to various companies and is used for transmission of radio and television programs, weather data and other information. ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 15-Jan-84 0302 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #91 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts at MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 91 Today's Topics: Challenger at Pad RE: space moped "Rights" of planets? Terraforming vs. Space Stations Re: What about Cavemen? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 13 Jan 84 12:50:48-PST (Fri) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: harpo!eagle!allegra!alice!alb @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Challenger at Pad The Challenger was moved to pad 39A today in preparation for its 3 February liftoff. ------------------------------ Date: 13 Jan 84 18:24:24-PST (Fri) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: hplabs!hao!ames-lm!al @ Ucb-Vax Subject: RE: space moped NASA has already built a space moped and plans to test it on the next shuttle flight. It's called the MMU, mannued manuvering unit. Watch for it on your TV around Feb. 6th or so. ------------------------------ Date: 14 Jan 1984 12:46 EST (Sat) Message-ID: From: David Siegel To: dietz%usc-cse%USC-ECL@SRI-NIC.ARPA Cc: ac%mit-oz@MIT-MC, space@MIT-MC Subject: "Rights" of planets? From: dietz%usc-cse%USC-ECL at SRI-NIC Re: "Rights" of planets? What gives us the right to nuke Venus or any other planet or moon in the hopes that it will make it habitable? We have done much to destroy Terra's ecology, so now we must work on other places??!! It seems to me that until Mankind learns to be responsible enough to take care of his own planet, he should lay off trying to change other planets to suit his needs. One could argue that since Man has messed up Earth, we should try to make up for it by building ecologies on previously lifeless planets. I disagree strongly with the idea that inanimate matter has "rights", as you seem to imply. Absent this idea, it's hard to object to terraforming, except perhaps for esthetic reasons. Who is to say that Venus is certainly a lifeless, inanimate object anyway? In the early days of our planet's life it too may have seemed worthless. If some other lifeform came along back then and attempted a major experiment on this planet, we might not be around today. Don't forget, nature has always seemed to be wiser than humans in the past! ------------------------------ Date: 13 Jan 84 15:22:45-PST (Fri) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: ihnp4!ihuxp!wbpesch @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Terraforming vs. Space Stations I think the point to see is that it will be necessary to have industry established in space in a very large scale to support free-standing from celestial body space stations. This support should definately come from asteroids. You have a surface to work without having to import one. You have raw materials. Energy is free through solar power. I think economically this is the feasible way to support free-standing space stations, not from the gravity well of Earth or any other major gravity well. Walt Pesch AT&T Western Electric AT&T Technologies ihnp4!ihuxp!wbpesch ------------------------------ Date: 11 Jan 84 14:06:38-PST (Wed) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: decvax!duke!ucf-cs!giles @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: What about Cavemen? One problem is mutual support. Ideally we would have a number of fairly independent colonies close enough to offer support, if necessary. (I guess you could describe it as -- I don't want to be so close to you that whatever almost kills you almost kills me also, but I want to be close enough that whenever I am almost killed you can help keep me alive. The case of the pronouns is not insignificant). If you work through the orbital mechanics, I suspect (but do not know) that heliocentric orbits in the astroid belt cannot be in such a relationship indefinitely. That is, if we start out separated by 10k km, for instance, then unless we follow the exact same orbit (and how many of those are there?), we will tend to separate instead of pull together. Of course, for the case of geocentric and lunacentric (??) orbits, a nice separation is possible without becoming *too* separated. However, you're right back in the neighborhood of the earth, and not off by Mars, or for the adventurous, Hoboken. :-) Bruce Giles --------------------------------------- UUCP: decvax!ucf-cs!giles cs-net: giles@ucf ARPA: giles.ucf-cs@Rand-Relay --------------------------------------- ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 16-Jan-84 0302 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #92 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts at MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 92 Today's Topics: Terraforming vs. Space Stations --> moon vs. asteroids To the stars -- but when? Re: SPACE Digest V4 #90 Apollo Trivia Re: Terraforming? Astroforming! Apollo 13 Query Re: n009 0652 13 Jan 84 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 15 January 1984 13:55 EST From: Robert Elton Maas Subject: Terraforming vs. Space Stations --> moon vs. asteroids To: ihnp4!ihuxp!wbpesch @ UCB-VAX cc: SPACE @ MIT-MC Date: 13 Jan 84 15:22:45-PST (Fri) From: ihnp4!ihuxp!wbpesch @ Ucb-Vax ... I think economically [asteroids] is the feasible way to support free-standing space stations, not from the gravity well of Earth or any other major gravity well. On the other hand, there's an awful lot of oxygen on the moon, and lots of aluminum silicon and titanium also, and the moon is at a constant distance from Earth, closer than virtually any "Earth-crossing" asteroid, and its surface has already been surveyed in a few spots so we're not guessing. Therefore, if we can get a mass-driver working on the moon which runs automatically without humans on the premises, tossing moondirt into space then moving to a new location to find some more lose moondirt, let's not ignore the Moon. I say use Moon for supplying all materials it has in abundance, taking advantage of its easy location (albeit uneasy gravity well, but I think we can overcome that with mass driver), and also use the asteroids, for the stuff they have in abundance (iron, carbon, hydrogen, etc.; but we don't know for sure yet, none has yet been surveyed). Ok? But I concur that processing and fabriction should be done in zero-gee mostly, not on the Moon. Collect moondirt and asteroid-chunks in low lunar orbit or at L5 or elsewhere in Earth/Moon vicinity, and do processing there. ------------------------------ Date: 15 Jan 1984 10:40-PST From: dietz%usc-cse%USC-ECL@SRI-NIC To: space@mit-mc Subject: To the stars -- but when? Actually, I predicted that there would be manned interstellar flights before the end of the NEXT century, not this century. There may be unmanned interstellar probes launched before the end of this century, but I think it unlikely. ------------------------------ Date: 15 Jan 84 15:05:21 PST (Sunday) Subject: Re: SPACE Digest V4 #90 Apollo Trivia In-reply-to: Alexander Wolf To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC.ARPA cc: Grantham.PA From: Tod Alex, Your informant was correct. From the book FIRST ON THE MOON by Gene Farmer and Dora Jane Hamblin (copyright 1970 by Little, Brown and Company Inc.): " At 9:56 PM, Houston time, Neil Armstrong stepped out of the dish- shaped landing pad and onto the surface of the moon: ' THAT'S ONE SMALL STEP FOR A MAN, ONE GIANT LEAP FOR MANKIND'" (page 321) footnote 1: " Mission Control in Houston recorded Neil Armstrong as saying ' That's one small step for man...' without the article 'a.' Tape recorders are fallible. When Charles 'Pete' Conrad, the flight commander of Apollo 12, stepped onto the moon on November 19, 1969, he paraphrased the quotation: 'Whoopee, man, that may have been a small step for Neil, but that's a long one for me.'" (page 509) Tod Grantham Xerox Corp. Palo Alto Research Center ------------------------------ id AA23382; Sun, 15 Jan 84 17:38:33 pst Date: Sun, 15 Jan 84 17:38:28 pst From: turner%ucbesvax@Berkeley (Michael Turner) Message-Id: <8401160138.AA04905@ucbesvax.ARPA> id AA04905; Sun, 15 Jan 84 17:38:28 pst To: decvax!dietz@Berkeley, space@mit-mc.ARPA Subject: Re: Terraforming? Astroforming! Cc: randvax!ucbesvax.turner@Berkeley Thanks for the correction. There remains the problem of equipping the appropriate Jovian moon with s suitable atmosphere. Any ideas on that one? -mike ------------------------------ From: John Shore Date: Sun, 15 Jan 84 21:01:27 EST To: space at Mit-Mc Subject: Apollo 13 Query Cc: shore at NRL-CSS Does anyone out there remember details about the cause of the Apollo 13 explosion? My vague recollection is that one engineer's assumption about the current on a particular line was violated when a change was made. The resulting interface mismatch led to overheating and then to the explosion. Anyway, I would like to get my facts straight. If there's an easily available report (Aviation Week?), a reference would be sufficient. Please reply direct to shore@nrl-css. Thanks in advance. John Shore shore@nrl-css ------------------------------ Date: 15 Jan 84 9:44:34-PST (Sun) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: harpo!eagle!allegra!karn @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: n009 0652 13 Jan 84 In-Reply-To: Article <15444@sri-arpa.UUCP> Funny how magnetic torquing has been used on dozens of non-RCA satellites over the past 25 years. AMSAT-Oscar-10, the amateur radio satellite launched last summer, uses it exclusively. I never thought somebody could patent the electric motor. Maybe I should try for one on the electromagnet. Phil ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 17-Jan-84 0303 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #93 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts at MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 93 Today's Topics: Re: interstellar misquote of Dietz by me Re: Re: "Rights" of planets? Re: "Rights" of planets? Right of planet? destroying planets? Made in Space Satellite killer ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 16 Jan 84 11:05 EST From: Gocek.Henr@PARC-MAXC.ARPA Subject: Re: interstellar misquote of Dietz by me To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC.ARPA cc: Sorry, I misread the century that you thought the first interstellar flight would occur in. By the way, open minded scientists, please stop beating the Phoenicians and their ocean crossing canoes down my throat. I made a mistake when I stated that the first oceanic crossing was not in a canoe. I still won't go on an interstellar flight that won't return. Gary ------------------------------ Date: 16 Jan 84 11:28:50 EST (Monday) From: Heiny.Henr@PARC-MAXC.ARPA Subject: Re: Re: "Rights" of planets? In-reply-to: DMS%MIT-OZ@MIT-MC.ARPA's message To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC.ARPA cc: DMS%MIT-OZ@MIT-MC.ARPA, Heiny.Henr@PARC-MAXC.ARPA "If some other lifeform came along back then and attempted a major experiment on this planet, we might not be around today." But then again, that might be why we ARE around today. By the same logic you use, I shouldn't clean my bathtub in order to keep the descendents of the bacteria therein around, even though they seem worthless today. Chris ------------------------------ Date: Mon 16 Jan 84 11:27:04-CST From: Art Flatau Subject: Re: "Rights" of planets? To: space@UTEXAS-20.ARPA In-Reply-To: Message from "David Siegel " of Sun 15 Jan 84 06:05:50-CST Who is to say that Venus is certainly a lifeless, inanimate object anyway? In the early days of our planet's life it too may have seemed worthless. If some other lifeform came along back then and attempted a major experiment on this planet, we might not be around today. Don't forget, nature has always seemed to be wiser than humans in the past! Who's to say that some other lifeform came along, and did attempt a major experiment on this planet and that's why we are around today. Just a thought! ------- ------------------------------ Date: 16 Jan 1984 20:06:22-EST From: Marty.Uram at CMU-RI-FAS Subject: Right of planet? Date: 16 Jan 1984 8:15 EST From: Marty Uram @CMU-RI-FAS To:Space bboard Subject: Siegel on "'Right' of planet?" from Siegel Who is to say that Venus is certainly a lifeless, inanimate object anyway? In the early days of our planet's life it too may have seemed worthless. If some other lifeform came along back then and attempted a major experiment on this planet, we might not be around today. Don't forget, nature has always seemed to be wiser than humans in the past! Who's to say we "humans" aren't the result of some other lifeform's "major experiment?" ------------------------------ Date: 15 Jan 84 11:28:56-PST (Sun) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: harpo!ulysses!unc!mcnc!duke!crm @ Ucb-Vax Subject: destroying planets? What is the difference between "destroying" an environment and "changing" an environment? I suspect that what I see as "controlling my environment" and thereby ensuring the survival of my progeny (and thereby, the human race) might very well be something like the sort of desctruction others have derided. I believe that humans are more valuable than uninhabited planets. I amke no immediate claim that this is logical, and in fact suspect it is at essence a religious question. However, anyone who believes that mankind shouldn't change things to suit themselves is cordially invited to stay the hell outa my garden. Charlie Martin ------------------------------ Date: Tuesday, 17 January 1984 05:47:05 EST From: Hans.Moravec@CMU-RI-ROVER To: space@mc Subject: Made in Space Message-ID: <1984.1.17.10.45.26.Hans.Moravec@CMU-RI-ROVER> a028 0120 17 Jan 84 PM-Made in Space, Bjt,500 'Made in Space' Label to Appear Soon By HARRY F. ROSENTHAL Associated Press Writer WASHINGTON (AP) - Plastic beads so tiny that millions fit in bottles smaller than your little finger will earn NASA $210,000 next year as the first commercial product entitled to the label: Made in Space. Nowhere else could they have been made uniform and perfectly round. They were created in four flights of the space shuttle, and the only thing that remains before they can be put to use is that they be measured and their size guaranteed. In the hands of medical researchers, the beads will be put to such exotic uses as measuring the ''exit channels'' of the eyes of glaucoma victims and determining the size of the pores of stomach and intestinal walls in cancer studies. They will be used to calibrate industrial and electronic instruments and devices that measure pollution. With ceremony appropriate to the occasion, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration soon will turn over 25 grams of beads - less than one ounce - to the National Bureau of Standards. The bureau will certify their 10 micrometer size within one hundred-millionth of a meter, said Stan Raspberry, chief of the office of standard reference materials. A micrometer equals one-millionth of a meter. When that project is completed in 1985, the beads will be divided into 600 units and sold to private researchers for $350 a unit. While technology developed for space has found applications on Earth, the latex beads created in the shuttle's ''monodisperse latex reactor'' are the first true space products to find commercial uses. There are many more such products to follow, however, including drugs made with a purity obtainable only in space. On Earth, it is possible only to make latex beads up to three micrometers because gravity tends to make larger sizes egg-shaped and irregular. The beads created in the microgravity in which the shuttle flies can be made in uniform, perfectly round sizes in large quantities. John W. Vanderhoff, a professor of chemistry at Lehigh University in Pennsylvania and chief scientist of the latex bead producing project, said the beads will be made in ever-larger sizes on four future flights. He compared the manufacture to the seeding process in which oysters are forced to create pearls. ''The pearl oyster gets a grain that acts as an irritant,'' he said. ''In this, we prepare a nucleus and it grows to larger size.'' The beads are made of polystyrenes, the same material used in foam drinking cups. ''Let's say you are interested in calibrating an electronic particle counter in a hospital,'' he said. ''It's desirable to calibrate it once in a while with a particle of known size.'' Raspberry said eventually the Bureau of Standards expects to certify space-produced spheres of 30 and 100 micrometers. To measure the tiny spheres, technicians at the bureau will use a number of sophisticated methods. One technique uses the angle at which light is scattered off the beads to record the diameter of the beads. Another uses a scanning electron microscope. The beads then will go into the bureau's inventory of materials that are yardsticks against which similar materials are measured. ap-ny-01-17 0420EST *************** ------------------------------ Date: Tuesday, 17 January 1984 05:55:38 EST From: Hans.Moravec@CMU-RI-ROVER To: space@mc, arms-d@mc Subject: Satellite killer Message-ID: <1984.1.17.10.54.25.Hans.Moravec@CMU-RI-ROVER> a019 2345 16 Jan 84 PM-Anti-Satellite, Bjt,510 Force Ready To Test Satellite Killer By TIM AHERN Associated Press Writer WASHINGTON (AP) - After months of delay, the Air Force is ready to flight test its new satellite killer - a weapon launched from a fighter jet which hunts down and explodes objects in space. The Pentagon says it needs the weapon to keep pace with the Soviets, but arms control advocates fear it will lead to a new weapons race. The U.S. anti-satellite weapon will be fired from under a high-flying F-15 jet and the first two stages of the three-stage weapon will be ignited, but no warhead will be exploded, according to officials who declined to be identified. The test, which may be this week, has been scheduled since last summer, but was postponed because of operational problems which now appear to have been solved, the officials said. In later tests, the weapon's effectiveness will be judged as it is fired against high-altitude balloons. The Soviet Union and the United States rely heavily on satellites for communications and reconnaissance, particularly in systems designed to warn against nuclear attack. The U.S. anti-satellite system, designed to be operating by 1987, has become more controversial in recent months as arms control advocates argue that it may touch off an expensive new round of weapons competition by the two superpowers. Last year, as it approved the Pentagon's budget authorization bill, Congress banned all tests ''against objects in space'' until the White House tried to negotiate a ban of such weapons with the Soviet Union. But the Pentagon has interpreted the language to allow the first round of flight tests. Soviet President Yuri Andropov last year called for negotiations to limit the weapons. While the United States officially said it would study any serious Soviet proposal, U.S. officials have cautioned that such a treaty would be difficult to verify and there are no current negotiations under way. The $4 billion U.S. system uses an 18-foot, three-stage rocket slung beneath an F-15, the top Air Force fighter, that fires it from about 60,000 feet. The rocket then hunts down its target and explodes it. The Soviets, by contrast, have an anti-satellite weapon which Pentagon officials say is operational, but which arms control advocates say is far less effective than the U.S. plan. The Soviet weapon, launched atop a large booster rocket, goes into low orbit, maneuvers near its target, and then explodes, destroying both itself and the target, according to Pentagon officials. About half of the 20 tests the Soviets have conducted since 1968 have been successful, according to published figures. The Soviet system, according to Pentagon officials who declined to be named, is relatively cumbersome, since the time it takes to prepare and launch it allows for observation by American satellites. By contrast, the officials say, the American weapon could be stored at various sites and attached quickly to any F-15, meaning the U.S. system is more mobile. The Soviets generally have lower orbits for their satellites, meaning more would be within range of the U.S. system. American military satellites are commonly in higher orbits, making them relatively safe from the current Soviet system. ap-ny-01-17 0246EST *************** ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 18-Jan-84 0302 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #94 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts at MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 94 Today's Topics: Terraforming Jovian Moons ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 17 Jan 1984 9:06-PST From: dietz%usc-cse%USC-ECL@SRI-NIC To: space@mit-mc Cc: turner%ucbesvax@UCB-VAX Subject: Terraforming Jovian Moons Via: Usc-Cse; 17 Jan 84 09:36:13 It shouldn't be hard to equip the Jovian moons with atmospheres, once they are hot enough. Indeed, the problem with several of the moons is the overabundance of volatiles -- Ganymede, for example, is mostly water, so you'd end up with an ocean 1000 km deep! Io is probably the best bet, although the sulfur might pollute things a bit. Water, carbon and nitrogen could be mined on the other moons; transfer can be made with mass drivers. ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 19-Jan-84 0303 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #95 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts at MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 95 Today's Topics: Space Shuttle mission designator explanation Monitoring Shuttle Communications cmsg cancel <460@ihuxs.UUCP> ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 18 January 1984 09:23 est From: JPAnderson.DODCSC at MIT-MULTICS Subject: Space Shuttle mission designator explanation To: space at MIT-MC The upcoming space shutttle mission has been designated as 41B, the 4 corresponding to the fiscal year, the 1 corresponding to the launch site, and the B corresponding to the payload item of the FY. The first payload of the FY, A, was spacelab. The launch site designators are 1 for Kennedy and 2 for Vandenberg. ------------------------------ Date: 18 January 1984 09:38 est From: JPAnderson.DODCSC at MIT-MULTICS Subject: Monitoring Shuttle Communications To: space at MIT-MC For the last shuttle flight, the amateur radio club at Goddard Space Flight Center rebroadcast mission audio on several ham frequencies. One that I monitored was 3860 LSB. For more information regarding frequencies, I suggest contacting the radio club directly (call Goddard and ask for the radio club). For those who require orbital parameters to plot the shuttle's orbital path, the news room at Johnson Space Center (713)-483-5111 will have equator crossing times and longitudes as well as keplerian element sets. Good Luck Jay ------------------------------ Date: 17 Jan 84 19:09:26-PST (Tue) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: ihnp4!ihuxs!hartwig @ Ucb-Vax Subject: cmsg cancel <460@ihuxs.UUCP> ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 20-Jan-84 0302 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #96 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts at MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 96 Today's Topics: Space transportation Space Station Re: Apollo Trivia The missing "a", other Apollo questions ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thursday, 19 January 1984 08:59:55 EST From: Hans.Moravec@CMU-RI-ROVER To: space@mc Subject: Space transportation Message-ID: <1984.1.19.13.55.50.Hans.Moravec@CMU-RI-ROVER> a034 0146 19 Jan 84 PM-Washington Briefs,630 --- WASHINGTON (AP) - Transportation Secretary Elizabeth Dole is pledging to cut through government regulations that have restricted commercial ventures into space. ''If we are to maintain America's competitive edge, we must begin now to introduce America's industry to the possibilities of space,'' Mrs. Dole told an annual meeting of the Transportation Research Board on Tuesday. She said she is establishing a ''one-stop service'' at the department for companies seeking government clearance for a commercial space project. About a dozen firms have expressed interest in launching cargo-bearing rockets, something that during 25 years of space flights has been limited to the government. ------------------------------ Date: Thursday, 19 January 1984 09:22:11 EST From: Hans.Moravec@CMU-RI-ROVER To: space@mc Subject: Space Station Message-ID: <1984.1.19.14.21.27.Hans.Moravec@CMU-RI-ROVER> n507 2252 18 Jan 84 BC-SPACE-01-19 By Albert Sehlstedt Jr. (c) 1984 The Baltimore Sun (Independent Press Service) WASHINGTON - President Reagan will propose next week that the nation build a permanent manned space station, and there will be some money for the project in his 1985 budget, a senior administration official said Wednesday. ''NASA made a good presentation'' to the White House in behalf of the space station, the official said, referring to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. ''It seemed the next logical step.'' Reagan will make his proposal during his State of the Union Address to Congress next Wednesday, the official said. NASA has long sought such a large station in Earth orbit that would contain long-term living quarters for astronauts, serve as a laboratory for scientific studies and possibly be used as a jumping-off point for expeditions to the moon and planets. The cost of a space station in its initial form has been estimated at $7.5 billion to $9 billion. A more elaborate station might cost close to $20 billion. The nation's Apollo lunar landing program cost a total of $23.5 billion in the 1960s and 1970s. Should Congress agree to appropriate money for the project it would be allocated over a period of years, not in one lump sum. The station itself could be ready for use some time in the 1990s. There is substantial support for the station in some congressional quarters and, of course, within the aerospace industry that would design and build such a vehicle. ''We sent a letter to the president several weeks ago, asking that he approve development of the space station and include it in his budget,'' said Anna Perez, an aide to Sen. Slade Gorton (R-Wash.), chairman of the Science, Technology and Space subcommittee. Perez said the White House Office of Science and Technology had requested a meeting with Gorton next week to discuss the project. On the House side of the Capitol, Rep. Don Fuqua (D-Fla.), chairman of the Science and Technology Committee is on the record in support of a space station. ''There is pretty much approval that this is the next logical step in space,'' said Radford Byerly, science consultant to the Fuqua committee. However, there has been no formal approval of a specific project, he added. A lack of specifics, with regard to just how a space station would be used, is one of the reasons the president's science adviser, Dr. George A. Keyworth, has been less than enthusiastic about NASA's proposal for a space station. However, he is understood to have become somewhat more favorably inclined to the idea in recent months. Keyworth still believes that ''you must know what you are doing it for,'' an associate said, referring to the specific objectives NASA would have in mind for the project. The Soviet Union plans to orbit a manned space station that would be permanently staffed and gradually developed into a multi-purpose research and manufacturing center, according to Pravda, the Communist Party daily. The newspapers reported the Kremlin's plans Nov. 28. END nyt-01-19-84 0144est ------------------------------ Date: 15 Jan 84 22:40:54-PST (Sun) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: hplabs!zehntel!tektronix!ogcvax!sequent!monroe @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: Apollo Trivia for *a* man .vs. for Man True, that is what the quote was supposed to be, but I didn't hear that it was the electronics that ate it. Well, if I was stepping onto the moon in front of a whole planet full of television viewers, I probably would have concentrated more on not falling on my face rather than what I was saying. The Knight In Glowing Phosphor, Doug Monroe Sequent Computer Systems {ogcvax,cdi,verdix}!sequent!monroe ------------------------------ Date: 16 Jan 84 12:08:51-PST (Mon) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: hplabs!zehntel!tektronix!azure!markp @ Ucb-Vax Subject: The missing "a", other Apollo questions Neil Armstrong says about the missing "a": "That's what I meant to say, and that's what I thought I said." "That's one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind." ^ Also, one of the last moon landings left a working camera on the lunar surface -- they got some great shots of the return portion of the LEM blasting off; plus, a camera aboard the LEM filmed the lunar surface as they took off. My question is this: Is the American flag which was left planted in the lunar surface still standing, or was it knocked down by the rocket exhaust and associated debris? Which mission was that, anyway? >From the comfy chair of: Mark Paulin ...tektronix!tekmdp!markp ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 21-Jan-84 0303 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #97 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts at MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 97 Today's Topics: Re: Apollo questions Saturn Moon Base Soviet space station Re: Apollo Trivia ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 19 Jan 84 15:03:51-PST (Thu) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: ihnp4!ihlts!rjnoe @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: Apollo questions I think it was Apollo 15 which first had a TV camera on the lunar surface watch the ascent stage of the LM take off. That would have been a camera on the lunar rover. Almost all of the later moon landings had a camera within the ascent stage watching lunar lift-off from that angle. I do know that the Apollo 11 U.S. flag was indeed knocked down, but I think they had the foresight on later missions to move it farther away. Roger Noe ihnp4!ihlts!rjnoe ------------------------------ Date: Friday, 20 January 1984 07:17:41 EST From: Hans.Moravec@CMU-RI-ROVER To: space@mc Subject: Saturn Message-ID: <1984.1.20.12.15.48.Hans.Moravec@CMU-RI-ROVER> n515 2353 19 Jan 84 BC-SATURN-01-20 By William Hines (c) 1984 Chicago Sun-Times (Independent Press Service) WASHINGTON - The rings of Saturn, which have fascinated stargazers for more than 300 years, are now believed to be much thinner than previously supposed. In fact, say two Stanford University scientists, the most prominent ring is no more than a couple of hundred feet thick, and fainter ones may be as little as a few inches in thickness. The new findings, based on radio data from the planetary probe Voyager 1 more than three years ago, are published in the issue of the journal Science that goes to readers this weekend. From the time the Dutch astronomer Christiaan Huygens identified them in 1659 until 1977, Saturn's rings were thought to be unique in the solar system if not in the universe. Now it is known that at least two other major planets, Jupiter and Uranus, also possess ring systems. Until deep-space probes flew out to Saturn's vicinity, telescopic measurements from Earth set one kilometer (roughly 3,300 feet) as the probable thickness of the rings. Preliminary data from the spacecraft Pioneer 11 (Sept. 1, 1979) and Voyagers 1 (Nov. 12, 1980) and 2 (Aug. 26, 1981) reduced the estimated maximum thickness to about 100 meters (330 feet). Now, say Howard A. Zebker and G. Leonard Tyler of Stanford's Center for Radar Astronomy in the Science article, new evidence indicates that the rings are, at most, a few dozen yards thick. ''Putting it in human terms,'' Tyler said in a telephone interview, ''the thickness of the A ring could easily pass between the goal posts at opposite ends of a football field. ''The thickness of the C ring could probably pass between the uprights of a single set of goal posts.'' The new evidence, they explained, emerged from analysis of radio signals sent back by Voyager 1 after it had passed the Saturnian ring system and was in a position to transmit through the rings back to hugh dish-shaped antennas on Earth. Saturn's A ring, the first discovered to be identified as a distinct feature and the brightest of all the rings, is about 6,750 miles wide. It circles the planet's equator at a height of 40,500 to 47,250 miles above the clouds that make up Saturn's visible surface. If the Zebker-Tyler measurements are correct, the gossamer thinness of Saturn's rings is almost incomprehensible. It is the equivalent of a sheet of material two miles wide and only x00 the thickness of ordinary plastic household wrap. How can something so insubstantial be visible from Earth--even through a telescope--over distances that are never less than about 800 million miles? High reflectivity is the answer. Tyler said most scientists believe the particles in the rings are practically pure ice. Saturn's rings are tilted several degrees off the plane in which the planets circle the sun. At various times during the 29.5 years it takes Saturn to circle the sun, they are seen from different angles. When they face the Earth edge-on, the rings are invisible. ------------------------------ Date: Friday, 20 January 1984 07:56:28 EST From: Hans.Moravec@CMU-RI-ROVER To: space@mc Subject: Moon Base Message-ID: <1984.1.20.12.55.50.Hans.Moravec@CMU-RI-ROVER> a232 1356 19 Jan 84 AM-Focus-Moon Settlement, Bjt,0953 TODAY'S FOCUS: Deciding Whether to Build American Base on Moon Laserphoto NY28 By HOWARD BENEDICT AP Aerospace Writer WASHINGTON (AP) - Buzz Aldrin, who walked on the moon with Neil Armstrong, says his old employer, NASA, is wrong in wanting a space station as its next major goal. Americans, he contends, should go back to the moon and build a permanent base there. ''The solar system's most desirable space station already has six American flags on it,'' he said in an interview. ''That's the moon. Let's use it and not turn it over to foreign pioneering frontiersmen.'' Aldrin and several individuals and aerospace organizations are trying to drum up support for a lunar base as the White House nears a decision on an expanded national space policy for the remainder of this century. Some groups are supporting a letter-writing campaign to President Reagan. The president may announce the new policy in his State of the Union message Jan. 25. Details would follow in his proposed fiscal 1985 budget to be presented Feb. 1. There is sharp division within the administration on what course America should take in space. But there are indicators that Reagan will strongly endorse an orbiting station, which for years has been the No. 1 priority of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. NASA officials, noting Reagan's recent call for a ''grander vision'' in space, said he also may support start-up money later in this decade for a scientific station on the moon, perhaps as an embarkation point sometime in the 21st century for a manned expedition to Mars. Preliminary 1985 spending projections given earlier this month to Republican congressmen by Budget Director David Stockman show the admininistration wants to add $6 billion to NASA's budget over the next five years. That's a huge increase for an agency that has seen several lean years and just about the right figure for space station development. Reagan wants to ''recapture the vision of Apollo'' and is seeking the best way to do that, said the White House science adviser, George A. Keyworth. The president hinted at his direction in a speech last October on NASA's 25th anniversary. He challenged the agency to develop more visionary long-term goals instead of just focusing on winning approval of a permanent manned space station. ''We're not just concerned about the next logical step in space,'' Reagan said. ''We're planning an entire road, a 'high road' if you will, that will provide us a vision of limitless hope and opportunity.'' The president has been influenced considerably by Keyworth, who said last September that NASA had not been imaginative enough in its long-range planning. He said the agency should be thinking beyond a space station - on how to use such a platform to return humans to the moon and then on to Mars. Since then agency thinkers have been working on just such a plan, but they have kept details under wraps. Aldrin and others have seized upon the president's challenge to urge a moon base. Some, like Aldrin and George E. Mueller, who headed NASA's manned spacecraft effort during the Apollo moon program, and James Muncy, president of Using Space for America, want to skip the station as the next goal and go directly to the moon. Organizations like the National Space Institute, the L5 Society, the Citizens Advisory Council on National Space Policy and Spacepac would like to see both a space station and a lunar base by the end of this century. Some would like to see both in place by 1992, the 500th anniversary of Columbus' voyage to the New World. Such organizations, which are privately funded, were formed to advocate greater emphasis on the national space program. The L5 society is named for the fifth ''libration point'' between earth and moon, where gravity is balanced and where a space stations conceivably could be parked. NASA's concern is that it can't do two expensive programs at the same time. Developing an operational space station for eight people by 1991 will cost between $6 and $8 billion. Building a moon base in that same period would cost another $10 billion. The agency favors constructing a station first, ferrying up sections with the space shuttle, and then using that platform as a launching pad to the moon. A station would be used at first as a scientific observation point above Earth's obscuring atmosphere, to search for resources on our planet and as an orbiting factory to make pure and exotic pharmaceuticals and materials for commercial use. Aldrin, the second man to walk on the moon - on July 20, 1969 - said the nation would benefit more by developing an Orbital Transfer Vehicle to transport humans and materials from the space shuttle to the moon, leaving a space station until later. He said he has personally presented his proposal to both Keyworth and NASA administrator James M. Beggs. The moon could serve as an excellent scientific observation post, and workers there could gradually construct a large solar power station to provide an enormous amount of electricity to Earth, he said. Systems Development Corporation, a Burroughs company in Santa Monica, Calif., recently made such a formal proposal to the space agency. Aldrin is a consultant to SDC and has worked out a series of rendezvous techniques for manned vehicles transferring between Earth and moon. As a physicist he developed many of the rendezvous techniques for the Gemini and Apollo man-in-space projects. Aldrin said that the six American manned missions to the moon found that there are considerable supplies of minerals and building materials there. He said 90 percent of a moon base could be built from materials already there. ------------------------------ Date: Friday, 20 January 1984 15:00:16 EST From: Howard.Gayle@CMU-CS-G To: Space@MIT-MC Subject: Soviet space station Message-ID: <1984.1.20.19.55.16.Howard.Gayle@CMU-CS-G> According to Arthur Smith of the London Daily Mirror, the Soviet Union is likely to attempt this year to launch a large (~100 Mg) space station into LEO using their Saturn 5 class (G) booster, which has not yet been fired successfully. The station would be about the size of Skylab, and much larger than Salyut. ------------------------------ Date: 20 Jan 84 11:52:20-PST (Fri) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: pur-ee!CS-Mordred!Pucc-H.Pucc-I.Pucc-K.ags @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: Apollo Trivia In-Reply-To: Article <15414@sri-arpa.UUCP> <333@sequent.UUCP> A recent cartoon in OMNI magazine shows the first landing of a manned spaceship on Mars. One astronaut has tripped and is lying in a heap at the bottom of the ladder. The other astronaut, leaning out of the spaceship, says: "Do you realize that what you just said will go down in history as the first words spoken on Mars?" -- Dave Seaman ..!pur-ee!pucc-k:ags ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 22-Jan-84 0303 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #98 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts at MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 98 Today's Topics: dichotomy(?): intelligent plants vs. 'zone of life' criterion Status of space telescope project Moon Base vs permanent space station Moon Base debate / I resent straw-man argument in news story ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 20 Jan 1984 1450-PST From: WATERMAN%USC-ECL.ARPA Subject: dichotomy(?): intelligent plants vs. 'zone of life' criterion To: space%MIT-MC.ARPA Question(dichotomy?): Is the 'zone of life' criterion (that is to say the liquid water criterion (that is to say the distance from the sun criterion)) the reason why plants could not be sufficient unto their (almost exclusively) non-carniverous selves? i.e. the photosynthetic process cannot deliver enough power from the energy flux intercepted at the earth's radius to allow plants to run around and build this and that ? At distances from the sun with sufficient energy flux, on the other hand, photosynthesis not to mention earthlike-biology wont work(?). Conclusion: the universe is condemned to be transformed by lines of murderous monsters (us) instead of by placid creatures ???? -e.s (waterman@ecla) ------- ------------------------------ Date: 21 Jan 84 2201 PST From: Ross Finlayson Subject: Status of space telescope project To: space@MIT-MC n522 0048 21 Jan 84 BC-SPACE-2takes-01-21 ADVANCE FOR SUNDAY By Albert Sehlstedt Jr. (c) 1984 The Baltimore Sun (Independent Press Service) WASHINGTON - The ailing space telescope project, conceived by astronomers to explore the far reaches of the universe but hobbled by cost overruns, management problems and technical gaffes, is now pointed in the right direction for a mid-1986 launching. That is the ''cautious optimistic'' view of Dr. Edward J. Weiler, an astrophysicist and executive at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration who is riding herd on a team of scientists and engineers charged with making the 10-ton telescope work. James E. Welch, another NASA boss who is overseeing the management side of the $1.1 billion program, scid ''Our target date is 1 June, 1986, and I don't see anything right now that would cause us to change that estimate.'' On that date one of the space shuttles is to carry the telescope to an orbit 320 miles above the atmosphere and leave it there for a decade or more of astronomical research. Neither man is congratulating himself at this stage, 10 months after a House subcommittee pointed to a list of management and technical problems - and cost increases - that NASA and its contractors have encountered in the development of the unique instrument. For example, the original cost for the design, development and construction of the telescope assembly has soared from a 1976 estimate of $69 million to more than $160 million, according to data compiled by the House panel, chaired by Rep. Edward P. Boland (D- Mass.) Over-all, the cost of the entire program has risen from a 1978 estimate of $435 million to between $1.1 and $1.2 billion today, according to Welch. And those figures do not include the cost of launching the telescope. Without making excuses for past mistakes, Weiler and Welch point out that the telescope represents an immensely difficult scientific and engineering endeavor fraught with unknown or unanticipated problems because it was pushing the ''state of the art'' from its inception. ''We're not building carburetors for Hondas,'' said Weiler. ''Space telescope represents the single biggest leap in optical capability since Galileo put his eye to the telescope,'' he said. And still ahead is the demanding task of integrating the 43-foot-long device with an array of scientific instruments that will operate in concert with the 94.5-inch primary mirror to help interpret the hieroglyphics of the cosmos for astronomers from around the world. (Astronomers will ''look'' through the telescope electronically, viewing images of the stars and galaxies transmitted from Earth orbit to the Space Telescope Science Institute on the Homewood campus of Johns Hopkins University.) Another important job facing NASA and its industrial contractors involves mating the telescope assembly to the metal housing that will support the scientific package in space. ''We're now getting to the unknown unknowns, and this late in the program that can really ring your bell,'' Welch said with the joy of a man half way across a rickety bridge. An embarrassing problem that seems mercifully behind the NASA executives involves one of those seemingly obvious precautions that would occur to any thoughtful seventh-grader working on his first science project at the Catonsville Middle School. After polishing the telescope's primary mirror to an almost unbelievable smoothness with a computer-controlled technique, the contractor let it get dusty. Smoothness is to telescope mirrors as youth is to fashion models. And dust equals wrinkles - it detracts from the overall impression. The mirror contractor, the widely respected but sometimes tardy Perkin-Elmer Corporation of Norwalk, Conn., plans to turn the polished surface up-side-down later this yeap and carefully go over it with a jet stream of nitrogen gas to remove the dust particles, or most of them. ''Hopefully, most of the large particles will be blown off,'' Weiler said. ''It is the larger particles that give you the most problems.'' There was a management problem here, too. Welch pointed out that the understanding with Perkin-Elmer called for the mirror to be ''visibly clean,'' a term subject to different interpretations by different people. However, Weiler indicated that too much emphasis can be put on mirror cleanliness because nothing is perfectly clean, including the space environment where the telescope will operate. ''You needn't clean the mirror on the ground to a point where it will be cleaner than in space,'' Weiler observed. Another technical problem has involved 27 latches on the telescope assembly that hold various instruments, such as the wide-field camera and the faint-object camera, in the right position. Latches are, after all, just latches, except these latches must be stiff enough to endure the vibrations of a rocket launching, hold up under the stresses of space operations, and keep the cameras and other delicate devices in place with an accuracy ''on the order of microns,'' to use Weiler's words. (A micron is an invisible fraction of an inch.) To meet these requirements, the latches have had to be redesigned and strengthened. The latches are a necessary part of the assembly because space shuttle astronauts will fly up to the orbiting telescope from time to time to remove malfunctioning instruments or replace some of them with with more advanced models. Another problem has involved slippage in the schedule for development of the telescope's fine guidance sensors that keep it pointed in the right direction by locking on to guide stars in the heavens. (This operation is analgous to a boater guiding his craft over the waves of the Chesapeake by keeping his eye upon landmarks on the shore.) Perkin-Elmer has now assembled the first prototype of a fine-guidance sensor, Weiler said, and ''it has exceeded specifications.'' ''That gave us all quite a nice Christmas,'' he added. On the human side, Weiler conceded the telescope program had suffered from a lack of good communication up and down the line, adding that the astronomers and other scientists associated wivh the program also felt they were not getting through to the managers. ''The scientists really felt their voices weren't being heard,'' he said. As a consequence, he asked each space telescope scientist last February to list the problems he or she saw in the program. ''I was shocked by the enormous response I got.'' he said. Another problem with the telescope project stems from the fact that it is big-time science. In the past, NASA headquarters has largely left the management of space science projects to the agency's ''centers'' (branch offices) around the country which worked closel with university researchers and contractors in preparing various missions to the moon and planets. Conversely, the headquarters people here have always kept very close tabs on the more costly, and more visible, manned space flight programs, such as the lunar landings and the space shuttle flights, exercising many management prerogatives from Washington. But the space telescope is entirely new. The old ways didn't work. In managing complex programs like this, Welch observed after 15 years of triumphs and flops at the Pentagon, ''you learn how to succeeed by failing.'' ''When space telescope is finally launched,'' Weiler said, ''it will work better than anybody expected.'' END nyt-01-21-84 0330est ********** ------------------------------ Date: 22 January 1984 03:25 EST From: Robert Elton Maas Subject: Moon Base vs permanent space station To: Hans.Moravec @ CMU-RI-ROVER cc: SPACE @ MIT-MC Reagan wants to ''recapture the vision of Apollo'' and is seeking the best way to do that, said the White House science adviser, George A. Keyworth. The president hinted at his direction in a speech last October on NASA's 25th anniversary. He challenged the agency to develop more visionary long-term goals instead of just focusing on winning approval of a permanent manned space station. ''We're not just concerned about the next logical step in space,'' Reagan said. ''We're planning an entire road, a 'high road' if you will, that will provide us a vision of limitless hope and opportunity.'' (1) From the above statements, it appears Reagan might actually be "in his heart" on our side in the expansion of the human race into space, and he seems to be giving us an invitation to send him our dreams for a gallactic society that can suvive and prosper even after our sun burns itself out 5-10 billion years hence. How about us make up letters where we give the quote above, then describe our dreams/hopes for space development, and conclude with what steps need to be taken next to avoid elaying the overall plan? (2) Re space station vs. moon base: Early setters made a wise decision, establishing way stations about one day's (sun-up to sun down) journay apart, so the traveller could rest and possibly get equipment repaired and medical problems cured before going out alone again. For really long journies into the unknown of course this is infesible, for example the trip by covered wagon from Missouri to Oregon. But for journies that are just a few days long, waystations are a great convenience for the travelers. Thus I think Aldrin is wrong in pushing for a moon base before the way stations (one in LEO, one in LLO, and perhaps one in GEO) are established. Rebuttal/discussion/debate welcome. ------------------------------ Date: 22 January 1984 03:45 EST From: Robert Elton Maas Subject: Moon Base debate / I resent straw-man argument in news story To: Hans.Moravec @ CMU-RI-ROVER cc: SPACE @ MIT-MC A station would be used at first as a scientific observation point above Earth's obscuring atmosphere, to search for resources on our planet ... Um, this paragraph is a non sequitur. Being up above the obscuring atmosphere is exactly an argument AGAINST observing from orbit. In fact in many cases data from ERTS/Landsat is unsuitable because of the atmosphere between the satellite and the ground, and U-2 or P-3 airplanes must be used instead. The correct argument for satellite observation of Earth to locate resources is that despite the obsuring atmosphere which present problems in interpreting the data, the global coverage (suveying large areas at uniform low resolution) at minimal cost (once you're in orbit, the fuel to "fly" another 25,000 miles once around the whole Earth again is virtually zero) more than compensates in many cases, making satellite-based ground-surveying more efficient in many cases than airplane-based ground-surveying. (I resent news stories which give false arguments for something I favor, so that later those arguments can be attacked by an adversory, and convince the public to be against that something because they never hear the correct arguments in its favor.) ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 23-Jan-84 0302 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #99 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts at MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 99 Today's Topics: ASAT Antimatter production, X-ray lasers, etc. Request For Information ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sunday, 22 January 1984 08:15:43 EST From: Hans.Moravec@CMU-RI-ROVER To: space@mc, arms-d@mc Subject: ASAT Message-ID: <1984.1.22.13.14.35.Hans.Moravec@CMU-RI-ROVER> n066 1524 21 Jan 84 AM-WEAPONS Air Force Flight Tests ASAT Missile By JEFF GERTH c.1984 N.Y. Times News Service WASHINGTON - The Air Force announced on Saturday that it had conducted the first test in flight of an advanced missile designed to destroy satellites. The missile was fired from an F-15 fighter plane at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. The test involved only the booster and booster guidance system and did not involve any target, the Air Force said. Cmdr. Jeffrey S. Rink, a Pentagon spokesman, said details of the test and test results were classified and would not be disclosed. The anti-satellite missile was launched from an F-15 flying out of Edwards Air Force Base in California, the Air Force said. The test took place over the western test range of the Air Force's Western Space and Missile Center at Vandenberg Air Force Base. While the Air Force has conducted what it calls ''captive-carry'' tests over the past year, that is, taking the missile aloft attached to the F-15, the test on Saturday involved the first actual firing of the missile. The test of the missile, the U.S. Air-Launched Miniature Vehicle Anti-Satellite (ASAT), seems likely to increase the debate over weapons in space. In the past, such advocates as Dr. Herman Kahn, who headed the Hudson Institute before his death last year, argued that ''clean wars'' could be fought in space. Supporters have also said the Soviet Union has been testing an anti-satellite technology for some time. Almost immediately after the test a group of scientists denounced it as a dangerous escalation of the arms race. The scientists issuing the statement, who have been critical of the technology in the past, included Henry W. Kendall, chairman of the Union of Concerned Scientists; Jerome H. Bethe, a Nobel laureate in physics; and Dr. Richard Garwin, a physicist at the International Business Machines Corp. nyt-01-21-84 1815est *************** ------------------------------ Date: 21 Jan 1984 13:58-PST From: dietz%USC-CSE@ECLA.ECLnet To: space@MIT-MC.ARPA Subject: Antimatter production, X-ray lasers, etc. Via: Usc-Cse; 21 Jan 84 15:36:27 I just read an interesting paper in the Journal of the British Interplanetary Society (JBIS, 1983, pages 507-508) on the production of antimatter (for use in interstellar propulsion systems) using concentrated laser beams. The idea is to focus enough light into a small volume so that the electric field becomes strong enough to create particle/antiparticle pairs out of the vacuum. The field necessary for electron/positron production is about 2.4x10^18 volts/meter. A light pulse with an energy of 2 megajoules lasting 3 femtoseconds focused on a volume .2 microns across does the trick. (Light waves with a wavelength of .2 microns oscillate 4.5 times in 3 femtoseconds.) The energy delivered to the interaction area should be converted to electrons/positrons with high efficiency (> 90% if helium nuclei are present to separate the particles). The intensity and energy density of the pulse are truly impressive: over 10^34 watts/m^2 and 5x10^25 joules/m^3 (or, a matter density of 6x10^5 grams/cm^3). That high energy density suggests that it shouldn't be too hard to get a very narrow laser pulse in which the energy density approaches that of normal matter. To reach a density of 1 gr/cm^3, a light pulse 1 cm long and .2 microns across must have an energy of (4x10^-13 kg) x (3x10^8 m/sec)^2 = 36 kilojoules. The Livermore SHIVA laser produces 10 kilojoule pulses, with a pulse length of 100 picoseconds, or about 3 cm (they are much wider than .2 microns, though). That much light should change the refractive index of the vacuum, leading to self focusing. If the energy density of the pulse decreases from the front to the rear the refractive index would decrease going back along the pulse, so the photons in the back would move faster than those in the front, causing the pulse to shorten. This optical soliton would not disperse with distance -- a real "photon torpedo". How would one create such a pulse? You'd need a laser cavity that's very narrow, and you'd have to pump lots of energy into it. A laser cavity 1 meter long and .2 microns across has a volume of about 4x10^-8 cm^3, or at most about 4x10^-7 grams of lasing material. So, on the order of 10^11 joules of energy per gram of lasing material would be needed. That's enough to accelerate the matter to 5% of the speed of light, if it was converted into kinetic energy. More energy would be needed to overcome laser inefficiencies. Most of the outer electrons will be stripped away at these energies, so lasing will probably occur in the far UV or X-ray region. This is beginning to sound like the rumors about nuclear pumped X-ray lasers. Could those beams be self-focusing? Perhaps that's why Teller is so up on the idea. ------------------------------ Date: 21 Jan 84 10:09:19-PST (Sat) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: ihnp4!ihuxj!amra @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Request For Information I read an interesting article in the Jan/Feb issue of Science84 and would like additional information. The article in question covered Alan Guth's new "inflationary" model of the universe. It is supposedly superior to the Big Bang theory because it explains the origin of matter and energy in the universe. I want to know if anyone is familiar with this new theory, and if so, is there any additional data to support/oppose it. I am not an expert in cosmology, but I do have a keen interest in this area. I figured there are numerous people on this newsgroup who could provide me with valid information about this theory. Any help is greatly appreciated. THANKS IN ADVANCE!!! Also, I was wondering what Stephen Hawking is up to these days. I admire the abilities of this individual and thought I'd see if anybody could provide more details. He posses a mind of superior quality and insight. His work on Black Holes is incredible. PEACE & BEST WISHES From the ever curious mind of: Steve (Black Holes Are Out Of Sight) Aldrich IHNP4!IHUXJ!AMRA p.s. Either post replies to this newsgroup or send me mail. Thanks Again for your information. ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 25-Jan-84 0302 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #100 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts at MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 100 Today's Topics: Glossary of NASA Terminology Intelligent life on Alpha Centauri? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 23 Jan 84 7:41:17-PST (Mon) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: hplabs!hao!seismo!flinn @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Glossary of NASA Terminology I've been collecting examples of the jargon in common use by people at NASA Headquarters. Here is the collection so far: I have not made any of these up. I'd be glad to hear of worthy additions to the collection. The 'standard NASA noun modifiers' are nouns used as adjectives in phrases like 'science community' or 'planetary area.' Definitions have been omitted for entries whose meaning ought to be clear. -- Ted Flinn Action Item Actors in the Program Ancillary Ankle: 'Get your ankles bitten' = running into unexpected trouble. Ant: 'Which ant is steering this log?' = which office is in charge of a project. Appendice (pronounced ap-pen-di-see): some people, never having seen a document with only one appendix, think that this is the singular of 'appendices.' Area: Always as 'X Area,' where X is one of the standard NASA noun modifiers. Asterick: pronounced this way more often than not. Back Burner Bag It: 'It's in the bag' = it's finished. Ball of Wax Baseline: verb or noun. Basis: Always as 'X Basis,' where X is one of the standard NASA noun modifiers. Bean Counters: financial management people. Bed: 'Completely out of bed' = said of people whose opinions are probably incorrect. Belly Buttons: employees. Bench Scientists Bend Metal: verb, to construct hardware. Bending Your Pick: unrewarding activity. Bent Out of Shape: disturbed or upset, of a person. Big Picture Big-Picture Purposes Bite the Bullet Big-Ticket Item: one of the expensive parts. Black-belt Bureaucrat: an experienced and knowledgable government employee. Bless: verb, to approve at a high level of management. Blow One's Skirts Up: usually negative: 'that didn't blow their skirts up' = that didn't upset them. Blow Smoke: verb, to obfuscate. Blown Out of the Water Bottom Line Bounce Off: to discuss an idea with someone else. Brassboard (see Breadboard). Breadboard (see Brassboard). Bullet: one of the paragraphs or lines on a viewgraph, which are *never* numbered, but always labelled with a bullet. Bulletize: to make an outline suitable for a viewgraph. Bureaucratic Hurdles Burn: verb, to score points off a competitor. Burning Factor: one of the critical elements. Calibrate: verb, to judge the capabilities of people or organizations. Camel's Nose in the Tent Can of Worms Canned: finished, as 'it's in the can.' Can't Get There From Here. Capture a Mission: verb, to construct a launch vehicle for a space flight. Carve Up the Turkey Caveat: usually a noun. Centers: 'on N-week centers' = at N-week intervals. Choir, Preaching to the Clock is Ticking = time is getting short. Code: Every section at NASA centers or Headquarters has a label consisting of one or more letters or numbers, and in conversations or less formal memos, sections are always referred to by the code rather than the name: Code LI, Code 931, Code EE, etc. Commonality Community: 'X Community,' where X is one of the standard NASA noun modifiers. Concept: 'X Concept,' where X is one of the standard NASA noun modifiers. Concur: verb, to agree. Configure: verb. Constant Dollars: cost without taking inflation into account (see Real-Year Dollars). Contract Out Core X: The more important parts of X, where X is one of the nouns used as modifiers. Correlative Cost-Benefit Tradeoff Cross-Cut: verb, to look at something a different way. Crump: transitive verb, to cause to collapse. Crutch: flimsy argument. Cut Orders: to fill out a travel order form; left over from the days when this was done with mimeograph stencils. Cutting Edge Data Base Data Dump: a report made to others, usually one's own group. Data Point: an item of information. Debrief: transitive verb, to report to one's own staff after an outside meeting. Deep Yoghurt: bad trouble. Definitize: verb, to make precise or definite. De-integrate: verb, to take apart (not dis-). De-lid: verb, to take the top off an instrument. Delta: an increment to cost or content. Descope: verb, to redesign a project as a result of budget cuts (not the opposite of scope, q.v.). Development Concept Dialog: transitive verb. Disadvantage: transitive verb. Disgruntee: non-NASA person unhappy with program decisions. Dog's Breakfast Dollar-Limited Driver: an item making up a significant part of cost or schedule: 'X is the cost driver.' Drop-Dead Date: the real deadline; see 'hard deadline.' Ducks in a Row Egg on One's Face End Item: product. End-Run the System End to End Extent to Which Extramural Facilitize: verb, to make a facility out of something. Factor in: verb. Feedback: reaction of another section or organization to a proposition. Fill This Square Finalize Finess The System First Cut: preliminary estimate. Fiscal Constraints Flag: verb, to make note of something for future reference. Flagship Program Flex the Parameters Flux and Change What Will Fly: 'see it if will fly.' Folded In: taken into account. Forest: miss the f. for the trees. Forgiving, unforgiving: of a physical system. Front Office Full-Up: at peak level. Future: promise or potential, as, 'a lot of potential future.' Futuristic Gangbusters Glitch Grease the Skids Green Door: 'behind the green door' = in the Administrator's offices. Go to Bat For Goal: contrasted to 'objective,' q.v. Grabber Gross Outline: approximation. Ground Floor Group Shoot = brainstorming session. Guidelines: always desirable to have. Guy: an inanimate object such as a data point. Hack: 'get a hack on X' = make some kind of estimate. Hard Copy: paper, as contrasted to viewgraphs. Hard Deadline: supposed deadline; never met. Hard Over: intransigent. Head Counters: personnel office staff. Hit X Hard: concentrate on X. Hoop: a step in realizing a program: 'yet to go through this hoop.' Humanoid Hypergolic: of a person: intransigent or upset in general. Impact: verb. Implement: verb. In-House Initialize Innovative Intensive: always as X-intensive. Intercompare: always used instead of 'compare.' Issue: always used instead of 'problem.' Key: adj., of issues: 'key issue; not particularly key'. Knickers: 'get into their knickers' = to interfere with them. Laicize: verb, to describe in terms comprehensible to lay people. Lashup = rackup. Lay Track: to make an impression on management ('we laid a lot of track with the Administrator'). Learning Curve Liaise: verb. Limited: always as X-limited. Line Item Link Calculation Liberate Resources: to divert funds from something else. Looked At: 'the X area is being looked at' = being studied. Loop: to be in the loop = to be informed. Love It! exclamation of approval. Low-Cost Machine = spacecraft. Man-Attended Experiment Marching Orders Matrix Micromanagement = a tendency to get involved in management of affairs two or more levels down from one's own area of responsibility. Milestone Mission Definition Mode: 'in an X mode.' Model-Dependent Muscle: 'get all the muscle into X' Music: 'let's all read from the same sheet of music.' Necessitate Nominal: according to expectation. Nominative: adj., meaning unknown. Nonconcur: verb, to disagree. Numb Nut: unskilled or incapable person. Objective: as contrasted with 'goal' (q.v.) Overarching Objective Oblectation Off-Load: verb. On Board: 'Y is on board' = the participation of Y is assured. On-Boards: employees or participants. On Leave: on vacation. On the Part Of On Travel: out of town. Open Loop Out-of-House Over Guidelines Ox: 'depends on whose ox is gored.' Package Paradigm Parking Orbit: temporary assignment or employment. Pathfinder Studies Pedigree: history of accumulation of non-NASA support for a mission. Peg to Hang X On Pie: 'another slice through this same pie is...' Piece of the Action Ping On: verb, to remind someone of something they were supposed to do. Pitch: a presentation to management. Placekeeper Planning Exercise Pony in This Pile of Manure Somewhere = some part of this mess may be salvageable. Posture Pre-Posthumous Prioritize Priority Listing Problem Being Worked: 'we're working that problem.' Problem Areas Product = end item. Programmatic Pucker Factor: degree of apprehension. Pull One's Tongue Through One's Nose: give someone a hard time. Pulse: verb, as, 'pulse the system.' Quick Look Rackup = lashup. Rainmaker: an employee able to get approval for budget increases or new missions. Rapee: a person on the receiving end of an unfavorable decision. Rattle the Cage: 'that will rattle their cage.' Real-Year Dollars: cost taking inflation into account, as contrasted with 'constant dollars.' Reclama Refugee: a person transferred from another program. Report Out: verb, used for 'report.' Resources = money. Resource-Intensive = expensive. ROM: 'rough order of magnitude,' of estimates. Rubric Runout Sales Pitch Scenario Scope: verb, to attempt to understand something. Scoped Out: pp., understood. Secular = non-scientific or non-technological. Self-Serving Sense: noun, used instead of 'consensus.' Shopping List Show Stopper Sign Off On something = approve. Space Cadets: NASA employees. Space Winnies or Wieners: ditto, but even more derogatory. X-Specific Speak to X: to comment on X, where X is a subject, not a person. Specificity Speed, Up To Spinning One's Wheels Spooks: DOD of similar people from other agencies. Staff: verb. Standpoint: 'from an X standpoint' Statussed: adj., as, 'that has been statussed.' Strap On: verb, to try out: 'strap on this idea...' Strawman String to One's Bow Street, On The: distributed outside one's own office. Stroking Structure: verb. Subsume Success-Oriented: no provision for possible trouble. Surface: verb, to bring up a problem. Surveille: verb. Suspense Date: the mildest form of imaginary deadline. Tail: to have one's tail in a crack = to be upset or in trouble. Tall Pole in the Tent: data anomaly. Tar With the Same Brush On Target Task Force Team All Set Up Tickler = reminder. Tiger Team Time-Critical: something likely to cause schedule trouble. Time Frame Torque the System Total X, where X is one of the standard NASA noun modifiers. Total X Picture Truth Model Unique Update: noun or verb. Up-Front: adj. Upscale Upper Management Vector: verb. Vector a Program: to direct it toward some objective. Ventilate the Issues: to discuss problems. Versatilify: verb, to make something more versatile. Viable: adj., something that might work or might be acceptable. Viewgraph: always mandatory in any presentation. Viz-a-Viz WAG = wild-assed guess. Wall to Wall: adj., pervasive. Watch: 'didn't happen on my watch...' Water Off a Duck's Back Waterfall Chart: one way of present costs vs. time. I'm Not Waving, I'm Drowning Wedge; Planning Wedge: available future-year money. Been to the Well Where Coming From Whole Nine Yards X-Wide X-wise Workaround: way to overcome a problem. Wrapped Around the Axle: disturbed or upset. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 24 Jan 84 17:59:12 PST From: Rich Wales To: Space@MIT-MC Subject: Intelligent life on Alpha Centauri? How thorough a search has been made to date for intelligence-bearing radio signals from possible planets orbiting Alpha Centauri A or Alpha Centauri B? Seemingly both of these stars are enough like our Sun that one or both could have planets with "life as we know it". If we did succeed in picking up and identifying intelligent signals from this system, the fact that it is only a little more than 4 light years from Earth seems to open up the real possibility of two-way communication. The only problem I can think of off the top of my head is that radio equipment for such a project would have to be located in the Southern Hemisphere. -- Rich ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 26-Jan-84 0302 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #101 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts at MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 101 Today's Topics: Re: Intelligent life on Alpha Centauri re: a-centauri; note on ronnie's speach tonight. NASA Vocabulary Sussman's talk on the "Digital Orrery". ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 25 Jan 1984 7:23-PST From: dietz%usc-cse%USC-ECL@SRI-NIC To: space@mit-mc Cc: v.wales@UCLA-LOCUS Subject: Re: Intelligent life on Alpha Centauri Reply-To: dietz%usc-cse%USC-ECL@SRI-NIC Via: Usc-Cse; 25 Jan 84 07:35:50 I think the early SETI searches looked at all nearby sunlike stars, including Alpha Centauri, Tau Ceti, and so on. At least 700 stars have been examined in detail so far (this number may be out of date). Actually, there probably isn't any life ON Alpha Centauri, and there are probably no earth-like planets around either Alpha Cent. A or B. Current theory on planetary formation has is that planets will form in a binary system if the stars are very close together, so the planets orbit both, or very far apart (100 au) so each has its own planetary system. Alpha Centauri A and B are the wrong distance apart, so planetesimals cannot accumulate to form planets; their orbits are too scrambled. There COULD be lots of asteroids, though -- it may be a good place to send colonists. Proxima Centauri may have planets, but none have been detected, and it's a red dwarf anyway. Actually, the radio equipment to detect signals from Alpha Centauri wouldn't have to be in the southern hemisphere. Alpha Centauri can be seen from parts of the southern US, albeit at low angles. ------------------------------ Date: 25 Jan 1984 0932-PST From: WATERMAN%USC-ECL@SRI-NIC Subject: re: a-centauri; note on ronnie's speach tonight. To: space@MIT-MC re: radio survey of a-centauri for intelligent signals: the 's.e.t.i' program was supposed to do that sort of thing. I suppose if there was any intelligent life as close as a-centauri and they were communicating via rf signals, we would have known by now. re: ronnie's speech tonight: radio report says he will propose: ' a permanent manned space station ... AND ... prayer in the schools' !!! With the entire state of Texas and our prez. agreeing that science is opinion rather than evolving consesus based on the statistics of observation , what good will a manned space station be since it will be inhabited by bible-toting fanatics? ------- ------------------------------ Date: 25 Jan 1984 15:06:02 PST From: METH@USC-ISI Subject: NASA Vocabulary To: SPACE@MIT-MC cc: METH@USC-ISI Also: SWAG - Scientific WAG (see WAG). Gone South - Failed, as "the satellite went south." POP - Program Operating Plan ...more to come (maybe) The official NASA acronym guide is being revised, it's about a dozen pages long. -Sheldon Meth ------- ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 25 Jan 84 15:38 PST From: Ross Finlayson Subject: Sussman's talk on the "Digital Orrery". To: space@mit-mc Gerry Sussman gave this talk at Stanford on January 24th. Here was the abstract: --------- A Digital Orrery Gerald Jay Sussman CalTech Theoretical Astrophysics Group MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory The Orrery is a computer specifically designed for doing high precision orbit integrations at blazing speed. It is intended to be used as a back-end processor, to be attached to a small conventional host computer (eg. an IBM PC). The host computer will be used to set up and access the states of the particles, and to set up the control sequences for the Orrery. The Orrery is made of a number of planet machines controlled by a central controller. For N bodies there are N planet machines hooked in a circle, such that data can be sent from machine i to machine (i+1)mod N. This configuration allows the Orrery to perform integration steps in O(N) time (with O(N) hardware). The machine has a SIMD controller which broadcasts identical instructions to each planet machine. There are no data dependent steps in the microcode, so the SIMD controller needs no inputs from the planet machines. I will discuss the problems the Orrery is being built to solve, the current state of and the details of the design, and the plan for construction. ------- rsf - Additional points that I picked up from the talk: A prototype machine is currently under construction; testing should begin sometime around June. The machine is being built with "off the shelf" TTL (there's no custom VLSI), including a special HP floating-point processor chip (I forget the details of this). The completed machine will be ideally suited for the solution of N-body problems, where 'N' is fairly small (say < 10). An example would be the computation of the influence (over several thousand years) of the Sun, Mars and Jupiter on the orbit of a particular asteroid. Sussman pointed out that even such problems with small 'N' have no analytic solution in general; furthermore, they cannot be easily 'vectorized' for efficient solution on a machine such as a Cray. Sussman expects (typically) a billion-to-one speedup over "real life". That is, it would conceivably be able to simulate one billion years of a planet's orbit in roughly one year of machine time. The machine will not be suitable for solving problems for very large 'N' (eg for globular clusters). Such problems could perhaps best be treated as problems in fluid mechanics instead. The machine will not be 'hardwired' for simple Newtonian mechanics (GMm/r**2). With appropriate hacking, the central controller's microcode could be modified so that (for example) tidal, drag and relativistic effects are also taken into account. ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 27-Jan-84 0307 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #102 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts at MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 102 Today's Topics: NASA lexicon Space Station Proposal; Geostar Test ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 26 January 1984 06:28 EST From: Bill Gosper Subject: NASA lexicon To: SPACE @ MIT-MC Did you mean finesse instead of finess? Objectation instead of oblectation? Anyway, here are three more from hearsay: Crackle: see Snap. Pop: see Snap. Snap, Crackle, and Pop: the fourth, fifth, and sixth time derivatives of position.. ------------------------------ Date: 26 Jan 1984 9:33-PST From: dietz%usc-cse%USC-ECL@SRI-NIC To: space@mit-mc Subject: Space Station Proposal; Geostar Test I was suprised at how little fuss was raised over Reagan's space station proposal. Perhaps the democrats didn't object because it fits in with their ideas on government supported high technology and industrial development. Or maybe the project is just too small -- $10 billion is only 1/6 of the Apollo project (in constant dollars), and it will be spread over nearly a decade. The most recent issue of Popular Science has an article about Gerard O'Neill's Geostar project. Geostar Inc. has successfully tested a mockup of the system in the San Francisco area (using transponders on hill tops and an IBM PC instead of three satellites and a supercomputer). Ultimately, users will each have a handheld display/keyboard with a builtin microwave burst transmitter. The transmitter will emit 500 watts of microwave power, but only for very short periods (microseconds). Users will be able to relay short messages (a hundred characters?) through the satellites and to determine their positions to within meters. The system will initially have one satellite; later two others will be added to allow position determination. User cost is going to be around $450/year for the microwave transceiver plus $40-$50 a month depending on usage. They expect to have the first satellite up in three years. ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 28-Jan-84 0303 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #103 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts at MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 103 Today's Topics: re: G.K. O'Neill's satellite plan Snap, Crackle, and Pop More on NASA ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 27 Jan 1984 1600-EST From: John Redford To: space at MIT-MC cc: redford at SHORTY Subject: re: G.K. O'Neill's satellite plan Message-ID: <"MS10(2124)+GLXLIB1(1136)" 11987026013.37.583.6200 at DEC-MARLBORO> So Gerard O'Neill is going to put up his own communications/navigation satellite. I find this sort of idea really exciting. Information is the one commodity that we know can be produced in space. Advanced materials processing may or may not work, and solar power satellites may or may not be a economical, but space info is already a billion dollar industry. But if O'Neill's system can actually let you find your position to within meters, then the government may not let him build it. The DoD is already building an elegant navigation system, the Global Positioning System or Navstar, and wants to keep it to itself. They figure that if they can find their way around with it then so can the enemy. There's a good description of the system in the October '83 Proceedings of the IEEE. The original proposal for GPS had several classes of equipment. There were to be expensive receivers with accuracies of under ten meters and cheap backpack units with accuracies of a hundred meters. Then when they actually tested the equipment they found that the backpack guys were good to forty meters. There was rejoicing among the engineers, but the military became worried. The portable units can be built and used by anyone. There's less advantage to knowing where you are if your enemy also knows where he is. They decided to degrade the accuracy of the signals that the portable units used, and to encrypt the signals for the accurate receivers. Military receivers get the key to the encryption and civilian ones don't. The cheap receiver's accuracy dropped to 200 m, although it's still apparently possible to get it down to 100 m. A hundred meters isn't bad, but it isn't good either. Ships and airplanes could still use it, but it doesn't seem quite accurate enough to be useful for cars or hikers. There's also no guarantee that they won't degrade it again. The receivers could be produced for only a couple of hundred dollars and could be shrunk to handheld units, but only if they are built in volume. Without better accuracy the volume applications aren't there. It makes you sick at heart. With a system like this no one need ever be lost anywhere in the world. In rain or in snow, in Oklahoma or Antarctica, you could always find out where you were. But the people with the purse strings decided that it was more important to hurt the Russians than to help civilians. If O'Neill wants to build his own system, then more power to him. Anyone want to lay bets, though, that the FCC will be pressured not to permit it? John Redford DEC-Hudson -------- ------------------------------ Date: 27 Jan 1984 13:26:11 PST From: METH@USC-ISI Subject: Snap, Crackle, and Pop To: SPACE@MIT-MC cc: METH@USC-ISI The third derivative of position is Jerk. Space station is $8B over 10 years, not $10B. -Sheldon ------- ------------------------------ Date: 26 Jan 84 5:13:30-PST (Thu) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: hplabs!hao!seismo!flinn @ Ucb-Vax Subject: More on NASA "You can take all the impact that science considerations have on funding decisions at NASA, put them in the navel of a flea, and have room left over for a caraway seed and Tony Calio's heart." This paraphrase of something Fred Allen said a long time ago is certainly true: at levels where people drop the word 'millions' from conversation about budgets ("oh, give them their eighty dollars and let's see what they can do with it") scientific justification for proposed projects is usually necessary but never sufficient. Dr. A. J. Calio, now Deputy Administrator of NOAA, was Associate Administrator for Applications in the late 1970's - an able and fair, but very tough, guy. ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 29-Jan-84 0303 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #104 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts at MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 104 Today's Topics: info wanted on calcium loss Apollo trivia Columbia Going to Rockwell Hangar Re: O'Neill's GEOSTAR Derivatives of position re: G.K. O'Neill's satellite plan ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 26 Jan 84 17:32:26-PST (Thu) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: harpo!eagle!allegra!rba-dx @ Ucb-Vax Subject: info wanted on calcium loss A couple of weeks ago some articles were posted on calcium loss in bones when in prolonged zero-gravity. Can anyone tell me where to get technical reports or journal articles describing this? Please reply by mail. Thanks, Danny Espinoza allegra!rba-dx ------------------------------ Date: 20 Jan 84 7:17:18-PST (Fri) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: hplabs!hao!seismo!ut-sally!ut-ngp!clyde @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Apollo trivia <> Several items of Apollo trivia (I remember these things well - but don't ask me my driver's license number). * On Apollo 11, the pallet with the TV camera was opened when Armstrong had climbed just past the porch heading down the ladder. The 'unofficial step on the moon' was testing the step down from the last rung of the LM ladder onto the footpad of the LM (he fooled Walter Cronkheit (sp) on that one). The 'first step' on the moon was really that. * On Apollo 12, Pete Conrad's comment on Armstrong's first words was partly because that last step off the ladder is a 3-foot drop, and Conrad is about 6" shorter than Armstrong, so it was a bigger step for him (physically). * On Apollos 15,16,17 the LM liftoff was shown by the TV camera on the Lunar Rover. Of course, there was a movie camera running in the window of the ascent module, (there was movie cameras running in both CM and LM for most important maneuvers). The LM liftoff on 15 was not tracked, for Mission Control was afraid that the camera would jam pointing upwards, and they didn't want that. Subsequent camera mounts had that problem fixed. -- Clyde W. Hoover @ Univ. of Texas Computation Center; Austin, Texas (Shouter-To-Dead-Parrots) clyde@ut-ngp.{UUCP,ARPA} clyde@ut-sally.{UUCP,ARPA} ihnp4!ut-ngp!clyde ------------------------------ Date: 26 Jan 84 10:42:56-PST (Thu) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: harpo!eagle!allegra!alice!alb @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Columbia Going to Rockwell Hangar The Columbia left KSC atop a 747 today on its way to EAFB. From there, it will be taken by truck to a hangar at Rockwell International, where modifications to it will be done. Columbia is being processed at Rockwell because both hangars at KSC are full, one with Discovery, the other with Challenger (after it returns from 41-B) ------------------------------ Date: 28 Jan 1984 8:24-PST From: dietz%usc-cse%USC-ECL@SRI-NIC To: Hank.Walker@CMU-CS-VLSI, redford@SHORTY Cc: space@mit-mc Subject: Re: O'Neill's GEOSTAR Geostar is superior to GPS for a number of reasons. First, the portable units are much less complex. In GPS, the portable units don't transmit any information (a good policy on the electronic battlefield) and so have to do all the signal processing/position computation themselves, and they must contain rather powerful little computers. In Geostar, the hand held boxes contain simple microwave tranceivers and some logic for sending/receiving encrypted digital messages. All the smarts are in the ground station in New Jersey. Positions are determined by triangulation between the three satellites in geosynchronous orbit (so accuracy degrades to tens of meters at high lattitudes and is not available near the poles). Another advantage of Geostar is the positions of all the active units are know at the control center; also, the system has the capability of sending messages from the control center to the units. This effectively rules out use of Geostar by potential enemies: no enemy is going to want his position know to within meters! Unlike GPS, Geostar allows applications such as: (1) Truck/airplane fleet position monitoring/communication. (2) Distress beacons. Each Geostar box has an SOS button; press it and authorities are notified of your position (to within meters). This is much more accurate than current distress beacons. (3) Air traffic control. The control center can determine, in real time, what aircraft (carrying beacons) are on collision courses and send warning messages to them (via the satellites). The last application is most exciting, and is the one O'Neill originally targeted. The FAA is currently spending tens of billions of dollars on an air traffic control system using radars and ground computers; Geostar would be far more reliable and far less expensive. An major airplane pilot's organization (AOPA?) has already endorsed the system. O'Neill envisions Geostar or a similar system allowing automated personal aircraft; position information with accuracies of meters allows automation of take-off and landing, the most dangerous portions of a flight (when combined with some simple very short range terminal sensors). Geostar will require only 3 satellites; GPS needs up to 24 satellites, so Geostar should be much cheaper. Unlike GPS, Geostar can only be used by paying subscribers -- otherwise, the control computer won't tell you your position -- so there's no need to worry about loss of business to unregistered users. Geostar is cheaper, less complicated, more functional, less useful to an enemy than GPS. I don't see how the government could prohibit it, especially with Reagan's push for space commercialization. ------------------------------ Date: 28 January 1984 13:24 EST From: Keith F. Lynch Subject: Derivatives of position To: SPACE @ MIT-MC, PHYSICS @ MIT-MC cc: KFL @ MIT-MC The way I have always heard it was: Position 0th derivative Rate of change of Position: Velocity 1st derivative Rate of change of Velocity: Acceleration 2nd derivative Rate of change of Acceleration: Jerk 3rd derivative Rate of change of Jerk: Thump 4th derivative Rate of change of Thump: ? 5th derivative Does anyone know what the 5th, etc, derivatives of position are called? ...Keith ------------------------------ Date: 28 January 1984 16:27 EST From: Robert Elton Maas Subject: re: G.K. O'Neill's satellite plan To: VLSI @ DEC-MARLBORO cc: SPACE @ MIT-MC, "REDFORD@SHORTY" @ MIT-MC Let me step back and analyze this system from an abstract viewpoint. Why would anybody want to know their position (relative to a coodinate system fixed on the Earth; as we all know absolute position is either nonsense or useless as the Earth spins thru space) anyway?? To establish rendezvous with some desired target (a fixed object or somebody else who you're trying to meet), to prevent rendezvous with some undesired object (a hazardous area), or to estimate distance between the current location and a potential target to determine feasibility of rendezvous, or to find the set of all potential targets within some prescribed radius. Following a route on a computerized map is merely a combination of using the navigation system to get a direction vector to achieve approximate rendezvous with the next map target, and using local feedback to avoid local obstacles and to improve the proximity of rendezvous, this procedure being followed over and over for different intermediary rendezvous points along a route. Can anybody think of any other fundamental use for a locator system? In the woods/mountains, getting within a few hundred meters should be sufficient. When your two locators say you are "at the same location" but you still can't see each other, you shout or fire a gunshot or use a local radiobeacon or radio-describe landmarks. In a crowded city you need more accurate information, both because normal city noises tend to drown out your shouts and the like, and because gunshots tend to disturb the residents and the police. It would be nice if a single system could handle both country and city, but perhaps cellular radio in cities will do a better locator job anyway, as well as provide other services that are too compute-intensive for the satellite to handle (the satellite would have to handle a whole world's load whereas the corner radio-cell-transceiver would have to hande only one square block's worth of load, about 9 orders of magnitude less), so maybe a dual city/country system is inevitable and having the satellite accuracy be insufficient to handle crowded cities is a minor inconvenience? ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 30-Jan-84 0302 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #105 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts at MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 105 Today's Topics: Mass Driver Simulator Program Apollo 11 trivia re: G.K. O'Neill's satellite plan ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 29 Jan 1984 11:13-PST From: dietz%usc-cse%USC-ECL@SRI-NIC To: space@mit-mc Subject: Mass Driver Simulator Program The following appeared in the Jan./Feb. 1984 SSI Update: ---------------- Mass Driver News Yes, Virginia, there is further mass-driver research being done here at SSI. Its local standard-bearer has been indisposed over the last few months [PFD -- working on Geostar] which has hindered the pace of work getting done. But that block has been removed and enw results will appear soon. Our request for help with moving the MD III computer simulation from the Apple to a faster machine and language was answered by a number of very qualified SSI Members and Senior Associates. From those respondents we have asked Mark Senn, a computer consultant in the Chicago area, to have a try at getting the program to run in FORTRAN or Pascal on the Purdue University VAX 11/780s, CDC 6000s, and possibly even their Cyber 205. We have estimated that we will be able to increase the program execution speed by about 10,000 times if we were to use the Cyber 205. After we have a good version of the code running we will send copies of the source code to other volunteers for their comments and suggestions. As for the experimental lab work on the prototype, I hope to get back into the lab for a couple of weeks in January to turn up the power. With the rush and deadline of the Conference last May, we were not able to safely investigate and test the system at full power. When we get results from that work, I'll report them to you here. -- Les Snively ---------------- They were running the simulation on an APPLE? Good grief. Once the program is available it can probably be distributed over the net(s). Who is interested in a copy? ------------------------------ Date: 29 January 1984 18:01 EST From: Keith F. Lynch Subject: Apollo 11 trivia To: ihnp4!ihlts!rjnoe @ UCB-VAX cc: SPACE @ MIT-MC, KFL @ MIT-MC From: ihnp4!ihlts!rjnoe @ Ucb-Vax Date: 19 Jan 84 15:03:51-PST (Thu) I do know that the Apollo 11 U.S. flag was indeed knocked down... How is this known? ...Keith ------------------------------ Date: 29 Jan 84 8:19:44-PST (Sun) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: hplabs!hao!seismo!flinn @ Ucb-Vax Subject: re: G.K. O'Neill's satellite plan In-Reply-To: Article <16109@sri-arpa.UUCP> Two potentially important uses for GPS are in civil surveying and in geophysical research. Texas Instruments and a small company in Massachusetts have developed and are already beginning to market backpack units which can determine position to a few centimeters in a geocentric coordinate system (i.e., the coordinate system defined by the GPS satellite orbits), although they do not work in real time. These units are not much more expensive than the usual doppler geoceiver rigs, which are accurate to a meter or so. NASA is also developing small GPS receivers for two purposes: (1) to locate altimeter satellites to a few centimeters (the altimeters have 2-cm accuracy and require similar knowledge of orbital position), and to monitor crustal deformation and movement of the tectonic plates. The NASA and competing units are now being field-tested in California, and there should be papers given at the next meeting of the American Geophysical Union on the results of this comparison study. For further information on geophysical applications of this kind of space technology, see an article I wrote for Science in June 1981, and the references cited there. ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 31-Jan-84 0303 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #106 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts at MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 106 Today's Topics: Re: Derivatives of position Electromagnetic Sails ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 30 Jan 84 11:50:01 EST From: Doug Gwyn (VLD/VMB) Subject: Re: Derivatives of position The fifth and higher time-derivatives of position are called "noise". ------------------------------ Date: 30 Jan 1984 13:36-PST From: dietz%usc-cse%USC-ECL@SRI-NIC To: space@mit-mc Subject: Electromagnetic Sails One problem with light sails as a propulsion system is that the area covered by the sails is proportional to the sail mass, limiting peak acceleration. Electromagnetic sails don't have this problem. An EM sail would deflect charged particles from the solar wind or from artifical sources. A simple EM sail is a conductor formed into a ring and positively charged to several million volts. If the ring has radius r then the field at a distance of r along the axis of the ring is inversely proportional to the ring radius. The distance the field acts on charged particles increases linearly with r, so the velocity of particles that can be deflected by the ring remains unchanged. The area of the ring increases as r^2 but its mass increases as r, so the maximum acceleration possible (in a charged particle stream of fixed density) increases linearly with r. Such sails could be far more efficient than laser powered light sails. A light beam having the same momentum as a 5 Mev (.1 c) proton beam has 20 times the energy. EM sails could be very light. A 1 kilometer radius loop made with 1 mm diameter aluminum wire would have a mass of about 13.4 kilograms. In constrast, a light sail 1 km in radius made of .1 micron aluminum would have a mass of 850 kilograms, and these numbers get worse as the radius increases. I've omitted the mass of the ring charging device. The size of the device would depend on the number of electrons hitting the the ring. A 1 km radius ring of 1 mm diameter wire has a surface area of about 20 m^2. I don't recall the density of the solar wind, but pumping 10^15 electrons/sec against (say) 5 kilovolts requires only .8 watts of power. An elegant way to maintain the charge on the ring would be to coat it with some e- emitting radioactive isotope. Alternatively, a ring carrying a current could be used to magnetically deflect charged particles. In this case the ring should either be a superconductor or, more likely, photovoltaic cells strung along the ring could be used to generate current. Ultimately, large rings could be used to extract useful energy from the solar wind. On a large enough scale such rings would cost far less than light collectors of equal capacity. For example, a 1 mm aluminum ring with a radius of 1 million kilometers would mass only 13 thousand tons (but would be far too resistive to be useful). Magnetic fields trapped in the solar wind would generate currents as they were swept past the ring. ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 01-Feb-84 0303 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #107 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts at MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 107 Today's Topics: Re: NASA lexicon When is the next liftoff ? Star Ships, Star Wars Mass Driver Simulator Program Derivatives of position Terraforming? Astroforming! --> rogue-planet way stations A manned space station. Re: When is the next liftoff ? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 30 Jan 84 10:47:51-PST (Mon) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: ihnp4!ihlts!rjnoe @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: NASA lexicon In-Reply-To: Article <15994@sri-arpa.UUCP> >Snap, Crackle, and Pop: the fourth, fifth, and sixth time derivatives of >position.. Just to confirm something I was told a long time ago: Is the third time derivative of displacement actually called JERK? Roger Noe ihnp4!ihlts!rjnoe ------------------------------ Date: 30 Jan 84 6:27:18-PST (Mon) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: harpo!ulysses!mhuxl!mhuxm!pyuxww!pyuxhh!kurt @ Ucb-Vax Subject: When is the next liftoff ? When is the next liftoff ? Please reply by mail. -- Kurt Gluck SPL 1c273a Central Services Organization 6 Corporate Place Piscataway NJ, 08854 ihnp4!pyuxi!pyuxhh!kurt (201)-561-7100 x2023 ------------------------------ Date: Tuesday, 31 January 1984 12:46:57 EST From: Hans.Moravec@CMU-RI-ROVER To: space@mc, arms-d@mc Subject: Star Ships, Star Wars Message-ID: <1984.1.31.17.44.59.Hans.Moravec@CMU-RI-ROVER> n073 1629 30 Jan 84 (ScienceTimes) By WILLIAM J. BROAD c.1984 N.Y. Times News Service LIVERMORE, Calif. - Behind fences topped with barbed wire and doors equipped with combination locks, dozens of young physicists and engineers at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory work late into the night, six and seven days a week, on classified projects aimed at creating the next generation of nuclear weapons. Their dream, they say, is to end the nuclear arms race. In many ways they trace their lineage to another group of physicists in the 1940s who dreamed of ending World War II. Yet they are remarkably young for their level of achievement and for their responsibilities. Theirs is a milieu of blue jeans, soft drinks, an occasional science-fiction novel - and seemingly endless, all-night bouts of work in the lab. Offices are cluttered with books and plants. Some of the young inventors are still in graduate school, working on their doctorates. None have ever seen a nuclear explosion. Their quest is to channel the energy of a nuclear detonation into focused beams of intense radiation that travel thousands of miles at the speed of light and destroy enemy missiles in flight, eliminating the balance of terror that has kept an uneasy peace between the superpowers for a third of a century. They believe that President Reagan, in what has become known as his ''Star Wars'' speech, called on them to speed development of such weapons as a way to help create a defensive shield against attack from space. Their key designs number a half dozen in all, although none except X-ray lasers and microwave weapons have been mentioned outside the world of government-imposed secrecy. Critics say these complex systems based on a new generation of nuclear arms will never work. They say an enemy could outsmart them with countermeasures, such as ''hardening'' the skin of a missile or simply overwhelming a defense with increased numbers of missiles, decoys, and hard-to-detect cruise missiles. The critics often oppose the secret nuclear projects as schemes meant to increase research budgets and to blunt public pressure for a freeze on nuclear arsenals. In a series of interviews, the youthful designers chided the critics as being largely uninformed about their work at Livermore and about the merits of defensive systems. They said lots of people worried about the bomb, but they intended to do something about it. ''We can try to negotiate treaties and things like that,'' said Lawrence C. West, 28 years old, who is pursuing a Ph.D. while he works at the weapons lab. ''But one thing I can do personally, without having to wait for arms control, is to develop the technology to eliminate them myself, to eliminate offensive nuclear weapons.'' The designs of the young physicists have come to be known in military circles as ''third generation'' nuclear weapons. The first generation, built in the late 1940s and early 1950s, were large atom bombs meant to be dropped from airplanes. The second came in the late 1950s and early 1960s with the advent of compact, high-yield hydrogen bombs that could fit atop intercontinental missiles. The third generation is altogether different in that the power of a nuclear explosion is focused into tight beams of radiation that can be directed at targets in space thousands of miles away. Dr. Edward Teller, who helped invent the hydrogen bomb and was a founder of the Livermore Laboratory, told Congress last year that he knew of a half-dozen ''solid'' proposals for nuclear weapons that could be used in a defensive shield, but could ''mention these topics only in a superficial manner'' in open session. ''Here are the whole gamut of third-generation nuclear weapons,'' he said. ''I am 75 years old and I am one of those of closed mind who did not invent them. But I am blessed with some young friends who come to my office and tell me there is something new under the sun. I regularly throw them out saying, 'Nonsense!' But they have learned something from me. They are stubborn. They come back with new arguments, with new proofs, and even though slowly, I learn.'' At odds with the nuclear innovations of Teller's young friends is a formidable array of critics, not a few of whom are veterans of the earliest American attempts to unleash the hidden powers of the atom. With surprising unanimity, these critics today lobby for a complete ban on the construction and testing of all nuclear weapons. The false promise of defensive systems, they assert, will only fuel the arms race. Among other criticisms and questions are these: -Rationalize how you will, bombs are ultimately meant to kill people. When he first came to Livermore, West, the physicist pursuing his Ph.D., had reservations about working on weapons, but eventually put them aside. ''Nowadays I would be quite willing to go and do full-time weapons work because I see the vast possibilities,'' he said. ''A tremendous amount of creativity is needed, and there are very few scientists willing to do it. Nuclear weapons can devastate the world. I recognize that. But we are making anti-weapons. My primary interest is not trying to find better ways to kill people, but better ways to kill arms.'' He said, for instance, that X-ray lasers cannot be used against cities but only against objects in space, such as speeding missiles, because the weapon's rays will not penetrate the Earth's thick atmosphere. West was raised an Episcopalian and was a Boy Scout. About six years ago he graduated at the top of his class from the California Institute of Technology and joined Livermore. Since then he has worked mainly on the theory and experimental design of a new generation of supercomputers. ''This group was very exciting to me, right from the first day,'' West said. ''I could talk to most people here and have them understand me very rapidly. I just loved it.'' -What about the pope's recent plea urging scientists to give up their ''laboratories and factories of death?'' ''I don't think I fall in that category, of working on weapons of death,'' West said. ''We're working on weapons of life, ones that will save people from the weapons of death.'' ''It's a moral decision, and I believe in it very strongly,'' he said. ''I can't understand why everybody in the world isn't working on finding ways to eliminate nuclear war. Obviously, the decision to build bombs has been there for 40 years, and we keep getting more of them. Why not find technical solutions to a technical problem?'' -Do you ever worry that the technical solutions will fail and that you will thus contribute to the end of the world? ''I just don't see how it could bring about a cataclysm,'' said West. ''If you have a large system with lots of redundancy, it would work.'' Third-generation ideas, which are being pursued by all three of the government's nuclear weapons laboratories, first came to life at Livermore, which is run by the University of California for the federal Department of Energy. The facility, which has 7,200 full-time employees, is about 40 miles southeast of San Francisco. In a corner of the laboratory is a small cluster of buildings that house O Group, a branch of the physics department. This is where West says he works sometimes up to 30 hours at a stretch. This, too, is where 50 other young scientists labor on advanced ideas in such areas as astrophysics, supercomputer fabrication, spaceship propulsion, and nuclear weapons design. Most of them have had educations heavy in science and technology and fairly light in humanities. A top official at Livermore characterized O Group as ''eccentric and extraordinarily bright.'' The group is not the only place in the nation where people plan third-generation nuclear weapons, but it is widely regarded as the spark plug. Here the average scientist is in his 20s, and few, if any, wear wedding rings. No women are present except for secretaries. The kitchen has a microwave oven, a hot plate, a refrigerator, and a mountain of empty Coke bottles. Not a few of the young scientists work straight though the night, when it is easier to monopolize the laboratory's huge computers, some of the fastest in the world. -Aren't special problems associated with a defense that relies on nuclear weapons? A veteran of the O Group is Dr. Roderick A. Hyde, 31, a graduate of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in astronautical engineering who has pioneered plans for fusion drives for starships. A senior member of O Group, he heads a section that analyzes the technical feasibility of new ideas. One problem with a nuclear defense, he said, is the short time available to respond to an attack, especially because the president ostensibly controls the release of all nuclear weapons. ''Obviously you worry about him being shot or, even more effectively, merely kept alive but out of communication, so there isn't a clear devolution of presidential authority.'' -Aren't third-generation weapons really just so much speculation? A luminary of the O Group is Dr. Peter L. Hagelstein, 29, who is credited with major innovations. His recent Ph.D. thesis from MIT focused on non-nuclear ways to create X-ray lasers for scientific use. Thick with equations, the document breaksfrom its esoteric pace at one point to list ''future applications'' suggested by science fiction books. One is ''Ringworld,'' by Larry Niven, a tale in which a spaceship is attacked by beam weapons. ''We have been fired upon,'' cries a character in the book. ''We are still being fired upon, probably by X-ray lasers. This ship is now in a state of war. Were it not for our invulnerable hull, we would be dead.'' Publicly, the best known technical triumph pioneered by Hagelstein and O Group has been the nuclear-pumped X-ray laser, which first came to life about four years ago as the result of a collaboration with senior Livermore scientists such as Dr. George F. Chapline. The weapon is being tested at the government's underground site in Nevada. A small nuclear bomb at its core, it takes the power of a nuclear explosion and channels it into laser rods that emit lethal bursts of radiation. Its possible use as a weapon system is some years off. But according to O Group scientists, clusters of X-ray lasers will be able to put a very large dent into the entire force of Soviet strategic missiles, currently some 1,500 strong. The power of the X-ray laser concept resulted in the founding of a separate group at Livermore known as R Program, a consortium of more than 100 laboratory personnel from different groups who are developing and testing the X-ray laser alone. The head of R Program is Dr. Thomas Weaver, who at 34 is one of the oldest members of O Group. -Given the terrible risks and uncertainties, isn't working on arms control better than constructing any kind of bomb? ''There's a simplistic view that says work on any weapon, defensive or offensive, is intrinsically evil, and that we should lay down our arms,'' Weaver said. ''The other position is that we are willing to take prudent risks in order to maintain our freedom. I for one would not argue that technological solutions alone are sufficient. I think they need to be combined with arms control and discussions between countries. But I think we have to be realistic. Without technical advances to motivate the discussions, they're less likely to happen.'' -The Russians could overwhelm a defense with decoy missiles. And even if only 2 percent of the Soviet Union's current total arsenal of warheads broke through a defensive shield, the resulting force of bombs would still number 200, enough to wreak havoc on this country's major cities. Visibly unmoved by any of the questions and criticisms is Dr. Lowell L. Wood, 42, a Livermore physicist who founded and heads O Group. Apt criticism is an aid in refining ideas, he said. More research was clearly needed, he emphasized, but the potential power of the whole spectrum of third-generation weapons was clear. A large man with a full beard, Wood is the principal inspiration behind the frenetic activity of the young scientists. In separate interviews, each of them paid tribute to Wood's scientific insights, which include advances in laser fusion and astrophysics. And they praised his ability to build enthusiasm. ''He has lots of confidence that no matter how young you are, whether you are fresh out of college with a B.S. or whatever, that you can still make a difference,'' said Weaver of R Program. Wood is quick with replies to critics. He says, for instance, that decoys cost about half as much as complete missiles, and that it is economically and militarily feasible to shoot at all apparent missiles, ignoring whether they are real or decoys. And, even if some nuclear warheads got through a multilayer defensive shield, he said, the Soviet Union could never be sure which warheads could penetrate the defenses, and whether they would strike cities or fall on missile silos in wheat fields. Such uncertainty, Wood said, is enough to insure that the Russians would think longer and harder before launching an attack than they need to at present. -Couldn't the Soviet Union make X-ray lasers and use them offensively as ''escorts'' to attacking missiles, knocking out our defensive systems? ''Probably not,'' said Wood, ''since the defender always appears to have the technical edge in these situations. Defensive third-generation systems are compact and lightweight and thus have a great capacity to carry protective armor, all the more so because they have to fly relatively short distances. They would be able to ride out an attack by offensive third-generation weapons and still be able to fire at a fleet of offensive boosters. These, on the other hand, would be quite vulnerable. Offensive missiles are very big and can afford to carry little extra weight over the long distances they must fly, so technically it's exceedingly difficult to armor them in any significant way against attack.'' In any event, scientists at Livermore, young and old alike, say research on a new generation of nuclear weaponry will continue, even if it is never used for a defensive shield. They say it helps them better understand the breakthroughs in this area they assume the Russians are making as well. The first generation of atomic physicists built the weapons that initially shook the earth. The second generation refined them. And now a third generation of weapons physicists has embarked on the exploration of a new frontier. ''There're almost an infinite number of issues to be pursued,'' said West. ''The number of new weapon designs is limited only by one's creativity. Most of them have not been developed beyond the stage of thinking one afternoon, 'Gee, I suppose you can do so and so.' There're a tremendous number of ways one might defend the country.'' ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 30 Jan 1984 22:57 EST Message-ID: From: G.MENAGERIE@MIT-EECS To: dietz%usc-cse%USC-ECL@SRI-NIC Cc: space@mit-mc Subject: Mass Driver Simulator Program I'm sure that there are many people who would be interested in the Apple program(me, for one). Do you know where I could get a copy of it? Thanks, Greg McMullan G.Menagerie@MIT-EECS ------------------------------ Date: 31 Jan 1984 1333-PST Subject: Derivatives of position From: Alan R. Katz This is all wrong, it really should be: Rate of change of Position: Velocity Rate of change of Velocity: Acceleration Rate of change of Acceleration:Jerk but, the 5th derivative is called inauguration (change of the Jerk)!! Alan ------------------------------ Date: 1 February 1984 02:04 EST From: Robert Elton Maas Subject: Terraforming? Astroforming! --> rogue-planet way stations To: dietz%usc-cse%USC-ECL @ SRI-NIC cc: SPACE @ MIT-MC Boy am I behind in mail reading, I haven't even seen this message that has been sitting in my inbox for weeks, much less reply to it: Date: 6 Jan 1984 9:53-PST From: dietz%usc-cse%USC-ECL@SRI-NIC ... There is reason to believe that star formation also leads to the formation of small bodies -- essentially independent gas giants. Such rogue planets could be very close to the earth, perhaps only fractions of a light year away. Hmmm, if there are enough of these, they could be used as intersteller way stations, having a source of materials already there instead of having to import materials from the nearest star&planetary system (the Solar System initially). So then all we'd need is a built-in source of energy for processing the materials into useful fuels and foodstuffs, or a technology for using the materials as fuel (if it's hydrogen, we know how to make hydrogen bombs, which if contained can be used as a quick&very-dirty nuclear power plant). If we can locate these potential way stations, perhaps the first interstellar travelers will be able to travel to one of them instead of all the way to the nearest star, and thus eliminate the quantum-jump nature presumed for interstellar travel, eliminate the generations-ship passed by later ships before it reaches its destination. A 2000-vintage ship might be able to make it to one of these rogue-planets in just a few years, set up an observatory for sending back info that allows triangulation of not-so-nearby stars to determine their distances accurately, and set up a comfortable facility (restroom and fuel-supply) for later ships. Maybe even set up a full scale habitat where billions of people can live. ------------------------------ Date: 25 Jan 84 19:32:56-PST (Wed) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: decvax!decwrl!daemon @ Ucb-Vax Subject: A manned space station. From: coevax::croteau (Reach out and Crush Someone) Newsgroup : net.columbia >From : COEVAX::CROTEAU Organization : Digital Equipment Corp. Reagan DID ask for a manned space station in last nights S of the U address. He wants NASA to have it operating within a decade. ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||| Given: Gerald J. Croteau, Jr. Nick: Jerry ARPA: decwrl!rhea!coevax!croteau@Berkeley decwrl!rhea!coevax!croteau@SU-Shasta UUCP: ... {decvax , ucbvax , allegra} !decwrl!rhea!coevax!croteau NYNEX: (603) 884-5837 USPS: Digital Equipment Corp. Continental Blvd . MKO1-2/H32 / \ Merrimack, NH 03054 /~ ~\ __`__\ ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||| ------------------------------ Date: 30 Jan 84 19:26:25-PST (Mon) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: harpo!ulysses!mhuxl!eagle!allegra!alice!alb @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: When is the next liftoff ? In-Reply-To: Article <637@pyuxhh.UUCP> General info on STS-10/41-B: Liftoff: 3 February, 0800 EST Landing: 11 February, 0750 EST Times are approximate. ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 02-Feb-84 0304 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #108 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts at MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 108 Today's Topics: Re: Terraforming vs. Space Stations --> moon vs. asteroids Re: Terraforming vs. Space Stations --> moon vs. asteroids the MMU EVA Things (I'm new) regarding net.space ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 27 Jan 84 13:16:36-PST (Fri) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: ihnp4!alberta!ubc-vision!uw-beaver!ssc-vax!eder @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: Terraforming vs. Space Stations --> moon vs. asteroids In-Reply-To: Article <129@ames-lm.UUCP> 27 January 1984 Don't put too much hope in Lunar Oxygen. Liquid oxygen as an earthly commodity is fairly cheap, $.15/lb the last time I looked. What makes it valuble in LEO is the cost of transporting mass to LEO ($1500/lb), and the even higher cost of weight in GEO (around $10000/lb). As soon as someone develops a Shuttle derivative vehicle, to LEO cost will drop by a factor of two or three. This will remove much of the economic value of Lunar Oxygen. Dani Eder Boeing Aerospace Company ssc-vax!eder ------------------------------ Date: 30 Jan 84 15:10:52-PST (Mon) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: hplabs!hao!seismo!flinn @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: Terraforming vs. Space Stations --> moon vs. asteroids In-Reply-To: Article <129@ames-lm.UUCP>, <782@ssc-vax.UUCP> What ever happened to Jim Arnold's hypothesis that the permanently shaded craters near the Moon's poles might contain water ice from cometary impacts? I think he estimated that there might be several cubic kilometers of ice there. ------------------------------ Date: 1 Feb 1984 1146-PST From: Richard M. King Subject: the MMU EVA To: space@KESTREL Does anyone know when the MMU EVA will take place this weekend? Will it be televised? Please reply directly. Thanks. Dick ------- ------------------------------ Date: 31 Jan 84 11:23:19-PST (Tue) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: menlo70!ames-lm!statvax!eugene @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Things (I'm new) regarding net.space My first attempt at posting news failed, I hope this makes it as Al Globius has succeeded. I am not a know it all about the space program, but I have worked at four NASA centers and at HQ over seven years now. And I am getting a bit weary. I started as a fresh out, anyway. Regarding the "Rights of Planets:" I suggest you find an opinion by Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas entitled: "The Rights of Rocks." This was a conservation opinion expressed as Douglas was a big muckee-muck with the Sierra Club. Yes, planets have rights, including the earth. Look to Antarctica to legal precedent. We must proceed with care in our voyages into space. Carl Sagan and the Planetary Society would back me up on this (Please with care, especially if youcan't keep you own planet clean). Space stations were circular, probably, because they rotated to create "artificial gravity." Current space station design is probably based on getting something into orbit for as little cost as possible (launch cost). NASA's conservativism -- Yes, its very conservative, more than I like, but I worked on a $90M project which died 1/3 into its' life mission due to hardware problems (not uncommon). We underwent a Congressional investigation. Space is not as popular as people use to believe. At a Compcon(82), a speaker, not me, just happen to ask the audience for a show of hands, "How many people would like the US to have a Halley/ Tempel 2 comet mission?" Only 1/3 of the people raised their hand. Fiancing space is not cheap: note nuclear reactor funding. Civil servants don't make much. Contractors have limited say in policy. I worked indirectly (imaging simulation[re: graphics, etc.]) on Voyager and other at JPL. I saw nine proposals for deep-space missions get flushed down the tubes with one remaining when Reagan came into office. As far as I am concern, with Voyager and Pioneer, we are already in the business of interstellar space travel. Sending genes in space and colonizing Io have been discussed at lunch talks in NASA. (Free format discussions, neat things, too.) [Aside, while doing undergrad work, I worked for a company making disk drive heads, and we discussed what it would take to encode DNA for data storage --UV radiation would be a big problem]. Space is a pretty harsh environment: Voyager I suffered heavy radiation damage passing near Io. Computer chips have to be of low density, this reduces available memory, etc.. [Can't run UNIX in space yet.] It appears my first message on blasting astroids didn't get thru. If you are still interested in actually working in the space program, I will gladly act at intermediate, NASA needs computer science people. More details later, I have to log off. --eugene n miya MS 233-14 NASA Ames Research Center Moffett Field, CA 94035 emiya@ames-vmsb ucbvax!menlo70!ames-lm!eugene ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 03-Feb-84 0303 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #109 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts at MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 109 Today's Topics: Re: Terraforming vs. Space Stations --> moon vs. asteroids inter-stellar travel Re: Lunar oxygen Planetary Program ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 2 February 1984 06:41 EST From: Robert Elton Maas Subject: Re: Terraforming vs. Space Stations --> moon vs. asteroids To: hplabs!hao!seismo!flinn @ UCB-VAX cc: SPACE @ MIT-MC Date: 30 Jan 84 15:10:52-PST (Mon) From: hplabs!hao!seismo!flinn @ Ucb-Vax What ever happened to Jim Arnold's hypothesis that the permanently shaded craters near the Moon's poles might contain water ice from cometary impacts? I've seen no interest from Ronald Reagan or Congress on this matter, and it would seem infeasible at this time for any private company to invest funds in exploring that potential resource. Thus we're in a helpless position, with this possibly being the critical path to fullscale habitat and/or manufaturing in space (water is needed for raising food and drinking, and hydrocarbons are needed in industrial processes). I wish there was some way to get our government to fund the investigation of this process. (Maybe after a private company finishes the ion rocket they're developing, it'll be feasible for somebody to use it to get into polar-lunar orbit without government funds.) ------------------------------ Date: 2 Feb 1984 1047-PST From: WATERMAN@USC-ECL.ARPA Subject: inter-stellar travel To: space@MIT-MC.ARPA re: inter-stellar(inter-galctic??)travel: has there been a recap lately of current thinking about possible propulsion+life-support systems for inter-stellar flight? Is the 1950's idea about using the world's supply of h-bombs out of the running now? then there was the interstellar gas gatherer idea and the laser idea and ..... ... . If a-i research/cognitive studies research gets as far as being able to map consciousness into a digital-silicon-brain, then one could in fact travel at the speed of light! Slow scout ships would go out and set up 'mind-trans- ceivers' at various places of interest. Then to go there, Mr. John Q. Siliconhead would just have his entire consciousness broadcast to the transciever at that place. He would get there in no time at all !!! Then he would just be booted in a duplicate material housing and be on his way strolling on the beach on planet x.! -e.s.(waterman@ecla) ------- ------------------------------ Date: 2 Feb 1984 12:11-PST From: dietz%USC-CSE@ECLA.ECLnet To: space@MIT-MC.ARPA Cc: randvax!decvax!cornell!uw-beaver!ssc-vax!eder%USC-CSE@ECLA.ECLnet Subject: Re: Lunar oxygen Reply-To: dietz%usc-cse@USC-ECL.ARPA Dani Eder: Has Boeing done a study on the economics of lunar oxygen? If so, how do I get a copy? Questions I have are: where does most of the cost of lunar oxygen come from? Transportation to LEO? Transportation costs from LEO to the moon and back? R&D costs? How would the economics be affected if large water deposits are found on the moon, so hydrogen needn't be imported? Is any demand foreseen for oxygen at GEO? For other bulk materials at GEO (for, say, radiation shielding)? Paul Dietz dietz%usc-cse@usc-ecla or rand-vax!usc-vax!dietz ------------------------------ Date: 1 Feb 84 10:09:22-PST (Wed) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: hplabs!hao!seismo!flinn @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Planetary Program Al Globus (NASA Ames Research Center) recently wrote: > "There has been a great deal of hand ringing over the lack of new >starts in the planetary program. Prepare thyself for heracy, I >think the lack of new starts is a good thing, although it should >end in a year or two. Why? > "Well, when conducting science I believe that it is a good idea to >understand the results of your first experiment before charging >off on a second. The planetary community should take a good hard >look at the Voyager data before designing the next set of planetary >missions, at least to the planets we've already visited. This argument >is not valid for asteroids and comets of course." If planetary science were actually 'charging off' to acquire new data before understanding what is already on hand, and if total understanding of, say, the Voyager data were a prerequisite for designing subsequent missions to whatever planet, this argument might have some validity. However, this is not the case. It takes many years to process and analyze the data from any planetary mission, and it takes at least *ten* years between the time that the planetary science community comes to what can pass for agreement on what the priorities are and what mission should be attempted next, and the approval of that mission - and then another five to seven years before launch and another two in flight - making roughly half a generation between our realizing that it's desirable to do a Galileo, say, and actually getting the data in hand. OMB does its best to apply Globus's argument, but planetary scientists obviously need more than one mission per career, and the solar system contains a sufficient variety of objects that we can be planning one or more missions while previously approved missions are still under construction or in flight. A few words to bring readers up to date on what the status of planetary missions actually is. Galileo is on track for launch in 1986 and arrival in 1988-89. Things look reasonably good for the forthcoming Voyager encounter. The Venus Radar Mission was approved in the FY1984 budget. The FY1985 budget announced by the President today includes a Mars Geoscience/Planetology Orbiter, the first of a series of Planetary Observer missions. ISEE has been renamed the International Comet Explorer, and is headed for Giacobini-Zinner after completing a a successful lunar flyby. The next mission for which the Solar System Exploration Division at NASA Headquarters will seek approval is the Comet Rendezvous - Asteroid Flyby, the first Mariner Mark-II mission, which will rendezvous with Comet Kopff and do a flyby near asteroids yet to be selected. The next highest priority mission after that will be a Titan Probe - Radar Mapping mission to Titan. I will certainly add 'hand ringing' and 'heracy' to the list of NASA jargon. -- Ted Flinn (former Deputy Director of Planetary Programs, NASA Headquarters) ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 04-Feb-84 0303 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #110 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts at MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 110 Today's Topics: Re: Intersteller travel via comet - (nf) Re: Apollo Trivia Sigh Re: Planetary Program Re: Destroying Planets Re: Space stations. Re: O'Neill's GEOSTAR ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 31 Jan 84 10:30:32-PST (Tue) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: ihnp4!stolaf!umn-cs!minn-ua!sew @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: Intersteller travel via comet - (nf) #R:ames-lm:-12400:minn-ua:15100001:000:425 minn-ua!sew Jan 31 09:53:00 1984 If I remember my physics correctly, you'd be better off meeting the comet on its way *in*, and moving away from it by the sun. If you can accelerate a habitat to cometary speed, however, you'd only want to tag the comet for whatever materials it might provide..would not need it for acceleration as (1) you have enough thrust for a generation ship and (2) a comet does not have sufficient gravity to accelerate the habitat. ------------------------------ Date: 1 Feb 84 15:11:26-PST (Wed) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: ihnp4!houxm!houxa!9212osd @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: Apollo Trivia In-Reply-To: Article <15414@sri-arpa.UUCP>, <199@ll1.UUCP> <--> Look up the Dec.? 1983 issue of Esquire Magazine for a decent article on Armstrong and the story behind the famous first words. Contrary to what Chuck Jones says, the words were no rehearsed at any time before the launch. He came up with the famous phrase en route. This article also explains Conrad's first words on the Moon. He just wanted to win a bet with a very famous journalist. He won, but was never paid. The purpose of the bet was to show her that NASA was not pushing or telling the astronauts what to say when they first stepped on the Moon. Check the Esquire issue. -- Orlando Sotomayor-Diaz /AT&T Bell Laboratories, Crawfords Corner Road Room HO-3M-325 201-949-1532 Holmdel, New Jersey, 07733 Path: {{{ucbvax,decvax}!}{ihnp4,harpo}!}houxa!9212osd ------------------------------ Date: 03 Feb 84 2215 PST From: Ross Finlayson Subject: Sigh To: space@MIT-MC n530 0121 02 Feb 84 BC-SPACE-02-02 By William Hines (c) 1984 Chicago Sun-Times (Independent Press Service) WASHINGTON - The head of the federal space agency has ruled out the possibility of a lunar base, or even resumed manned flights to the moon, until after the year 2000. ''Lunar bases, and even manned missions to Mars, are still in our dreams,'' NASA Administrator James M. Beggs told reporters at a briefing session on his agency's budget for Fiscal Year 1985. But as far as manned activities on the moon are concerned, Beggs added, ''I think you are looking at the years beyond the beginning of the second millennium.'' The last manned flight to the moon, Apollo 17, ended with a safe return to earth on Dec. 19, 1972. Big-ticket activity in space for the remainder of the century will focus on expanded operations with the four-plane Space Shuttle fleet and development of a ''permanent presence in low earth orbit'' in the form of a manned space station. The station, which is planned for occupation by astronauts and scientists beginning in 1992, was authorized last week in President Reagan's State of the Union message to Congress. At that time, space officials, including Beggs, estimated its price at $8 billion. At his budget briefing, however, Beggs acknowledged that $8 billion would be only the beginning. It would finance a bare-bones station that would be augmented, at a possible cost of $2 billion a year, in the closing years of the century. The new budget proposal includes $150 million for start-up costs on the space station. C. Thomas Newman, NASA comptroller, said the project would need ''$250-300 million'' in fiscal 1986, $1.2 billion in 1987, and about $2 billion a year thereafter. ''Don't expect that once the station is operational NASA's program will stop,'' Beggs said. ''We will continue to develop it. $8 billion gets you the initial operating capability.'' Interplanetary exploration, which has been on hold for several years, gets a moderate shot in the arm in the new budget, with $16 million in start-up money on a Mars Geoscience-Climatology Orbiter (MGCO) scheduled for launching in 1990. Beggs said MGCO represents a new class of ''relatively lower cost planetary observers designed to investigate specific questions in planetary science.'' Earlier probes, such as the Mars-landing Vikings and the wide-ranging Voyagers, were general purpose exploratory vehicles. MGCO will cost about $375 million to develop and fly, Beggs said. Along with a Jupiter probe called Galileo, set for launching in 1986, and a Venus radar mapper and a north-to-south sun-orbiting craft scheduled for later in the '80s, MGCO completes NASA's existing planetary program. There has not been an interplanetary launching since 1979. This was a Voyager spacecraft that is headed for a rendezvous with the planet Uranus in 1986 and Neptune in 1989. The coming fiscal year will see delivery of the fourth and final shuttle plane, to be named Atlantis. Beggs said he sees no possibility, at present, of a fifth orbiter being needed. The reusable shuttle planes, about the size of a DC-9 jet transport, cost about $1 billion each. Two, Columbia and Challenger, already have flown; Discovery is set for its maiden mission in June; and Atlantis is expected to be delivered in November. There will seven or eight shuttle flights in the current fiscal year, which ends Sept. 30. The first was last November, and a second is scheduled to begin Friday morning. Beggs estimated that the shuttles would fly 11 times in fiscal 1985 and 16 times in 1986, ''working up toward a planned 24 flights a year.'' Even with the space station in the picture a decade from now, the potential capabilities of a four-shuttle fleet should be adequate for NASA's requirements, Beggs said. He explained that each shuttle should be good for eight flights a year, a total of 32, and that servicing the space station would require only seven missions. Twenty-four regular flights plus seven for station-servicing adds up to 31. The bottom line on NASA's new budget is $7,370,000,000, an increase of 4 per cent over the 1984 level. Beggs said he foresees a ''real growth'' of 1 per cent a year for the rest of this decade. Taking inflation estimates into account, this would bring NASA's budget for fiscal 1989 to $9.2 billion. END nyt-02-02-84 0408est ********** ------------------------------ Date: 2 Feb 84 18:55:52-PST (Thu) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: hplabs!hao!ames-lm!al @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: Planetary Program In-Reply-To: Article <586@seismo.UUCP> If I read Ted Flinn's argument right, one should plan a second experiment (in this case a planetary probe) before really understanding the first because it takes 15 to 17 years to fly a space craft. Maybe the real answer is to cut that time down to something reasonable, say 3-5 years. The 15-17 years was broken down into 10 years of milling about and 5-7 years of work. I don't know what to do about the milling about, we certainly do a great deal of that here (I must admit I've contributed by share); but it seems to me that it should be possible to speed design and implementation, since we've already built several deep space probes and presumably learned enough to speed the process. There is another approach to getting more missions without designing new probes before examining the data from old ones. There are a lot of objects in the solar system, nine planets, our moon, several other moons, comets and asteroids. While Jupiter may be more glamorous, good science could be done with Lunar, cometary, and asteroidal probes. The moon hasn't had much attention since Apollo and the comets and asteroids have never been visited. Doesn't it make sense to go out there and take a look? Actually, things have worked out so that there has been time to examine the data. Galileo has been delayed enough to incorporate Voyager results and the Mars new start comes several years since the last probe to Mars. The planetary program proposed by that NASA committee (I can't remember the name) seems balanced and sensible. What I do object to are those that claim that the U.S. space program is falling apart. Nothing could be further from the truth. The program is strong, vigorous, well funded and has mainained a continuous stream of accomplishment from Mercury, Gemini, Apollo, Viking, Voyager, Skylab, IRAS, shuttle, spacelab and on to space telescope, Galileo, and space station. My other pet peeve are space scientist trying to sabotage manned programs such as space station. It we had a space station, Solar Max would have been fixed years ago, IRAS could be 'refueled' with coolant and work for years instead of months, and we could accumulate instruments in orbit instead of using them for a few months or years and then abandoning them for lack of simple repairs and resupply. This sort of accumulation could dramatically lower the cost of doing space science and open the field to far more researchers. In addition, many important space science projects requiring very large structures are impossible without a space station. Well, I'll get off my high horse. Bye. ------------------------------ Date: 2 Feb 84 13:25:14-PST (Thu) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: harpo!eagle!allegra!alice!rabbit!wsc @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: Destroying Planets In-Reply-To: Article <5032@uiucdcs.UUCP> In refrence to the analogy of destroying beaver dams and destroying planets, I agree whole-heartedly that we should do everything in our power to better our way of life, BUT (just as a thought), when the beaver dam overflows into an area which us humans need, we turn around and destroy the beaver dam. With further quests into the stars, whose to say we won't be messing up "somebody's back yard"? And furthermore, what are "they" going to do to remove our "beaver dam".........Again just a thought....... The Pessimistic Astronaut ------------------------------ Date: 1 Feb 84 14:49:58-PST (Wed) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: hplabs!hao!seismo!philabs!linus!utzoo!henry @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: Space stations. In-Reply-To: Article <578@pyuxqq.UUCP>, <1177@aluxp.UUCP> The reason why nobody is looking at ring-shaped space stations is that the current space-station plans do not use centrifugal force to supply artificial gravity. Currently-planned stations will have a free-fall environment throughout. Interest in artificial gravity declined steeply in the 60's, when experimental evidence confirmed that human beings were not seriously affected by moderate periods of time in free-fall conditions. It may well be necessary in the more distant future, when really long stays start to become a serious possibility, but current plans aren't that fancy. There is also a secondary issue here: current thought is that if people are going to be coming and going between a rotating section and a free-fall section, the rotation rate should be quite low. This is not a mechanical question but a matter of worries about things like inner-ear upsets. Last I heard, the best guess was that if you want arbitrarily-chosen people to come and go between the two environments over long periods, anything above 1 RPM is dubious. Given the nice simple relationship between spin rate, radius, and acceleration, it turns out that a 1-RPM structure giving a useful fraction of 1G has to be *big*, hundreds of meters at least. This is a bit too big for timid NASA planners just now. -- Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology {allegra,ihnp4,linus,decvax}!utzoo!henry ------------------------------ Date: 1 Feb 84 14:55:09-PST (Wed) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: hplabs!hao!seismo!philabs!linus!utzoo!henry @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: O'Neill's GEOSTAR In-Reply-To: Article <16100@sri-arpa.UUCP> Another advantage of Geostar is that a substantial fraction of the proceeds from it go to the Space Studies Institute. If Geostar makes it big, this could pump a lot of money into private space development. The way I heard it, the obstacles to Geostar are not really a question of the government banning it. They're just the usual problems of having only so many orbital slots and so many frequencies available, and lots of different proposals for how to use them. Geostar is in competition for orbital slots and frequency assignments with various other things, some of which have lots of backing. -- Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology {allegra,ihnp4,linus,decvax}!utzoo!henry ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 05-Feb-84 0302 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #111 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts at MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 111 Today's Topics: NASA lexicon Re: The missing "a", other Apollo questions Apollo Trivia Re: sunspots? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 3 Feb 84 9:06:34-PST (Fri) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: menlo70!ames-lm!statvax!eugene @ Ucb-Vax Subject: NASA lexicon A number of us who deal with NASA HQ got lots of laughs off the Flinn's first list, but the consensus was that much of the terminology is a year old. Because we (and others) can use buzz phrases in string manipulation languages (like MLISP), I am collecting at NASA Ames, and other NASA centers some of the current `jargon.' If you have dealings with NASA HQ, please feel free to mail to me, and it will post the total to net.space to add to Flinn's list. Give me about one month. --eugene miya NASA Ames Res. Ctr. ------------------------------ Date: 3 Feb 84 0:34:01-PST (Fri) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: hplabs!zehntel!tektronix!ogcvax!sequent!jax @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: The missing "a", other Apollo questions In-Reply-To: Article <2501@azure.UUCP> <1176@aluxp.UUCP> What I heard was, " One small step for a man ..." I never understood why the MEDIA reported what I did not hear, but I assumed that they were reporting the preprinted script and Major(?) Armstrong screwed up and spoke wrong. I greatly preferred the "A" version. The Wanderer aluxp!danhart --------- FYI, Neil Armstrong was a *civilian* test pilot before becoming an astronaut. He set foot on the moon as a civilian working for NASA. -- .jax Jack T. Inman Sequent Computer Systems Portland, Oregon 97229 ...ogcvax!sequent!jax (503) 627-9810 ------------------------------ Date: 3 Feb 84 0:42:02-PST (Fri) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: hplabs!zehntel!tektronix!ogcvax!sequent!jax @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Apollo Trivia What I heard was, " One small step for a man ..." I never understood why the MEDIA reported what I did not hear, but I assumed that they were reporting the preprinted script and Major(?) Armstrong screwed up and spoke wrong. I greatly preferred the "A" version. The Wanderer aluxp!danhart --------- FYI, Neil Armstrong was a *civilian* test pilot before becoming an astronaut. He stepped on the moon as a civilian working for NASA. It was a gaint step. -- .jax Jack T. Inman Sequent Computer Systems Portland, Oregon 97229 ...ogcvax!sequent!jax (503) 627-9810 ------------------------------ Date: 5-Feb-84 02:53 PST From: William Daul - Tymshare Inc. Cupertino CA Subject: Re: sunspots? To: edl@sri-tsc Cc: space@mit-mc, sky-fans@mit-xx Message-ID: <[OFFICE-2]TYM-WBD-4237B> There...got the info. You can get a free subscription to "Preliminary Report And Forecast Of Solar Geophysical Data" from...here goes... U.S. Department Of Commerce National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Environmental Research Laboratories Space Environment Laboratory Space Environment Services Center 325 Broadway, R/E/SE2 Boulder, Colorado 80303 This publication is published weekly by the Joint NOAA-USAF Space Environment Services Center. It has a one page general forecast of solar activity and geomagnetic fields, alerts, weekly energetic event summary, flare list, 27 day ap & 10cm forecast (whatever that is), weekly region summary and a recent monthly solar indices (preliminary). So, if this is light in your life...subscribe to it. --Bi<< ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 06-Feb-84 0302 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #112 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts at MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 112 Today's Topics: LAUNCH Re: LAUNCH Shoddy AP news-reporting again Second Deployment Delayed ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 3 Feb 84 13:10:29-PST (Fri) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: harpo!eagle!allegra!alice!alb @ Ucb-Vax Subject: LAUNCH The Challenger launched on schedule today, at 0800 EST. Soon after launch, NASA recovery ships located and secured the SRB's for tow back to port. ------------------------------ Date: 3 Feb 84 17:20:10-PST (Fri) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: ihnp4!cbosgd!mark @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: LAUNCH In-Reply-To: Article <2569@alice.UUCP> Does anybody know how they are going to navigate this untethered spacewalk? Personally, I'd be scared stiff trying to shoot around in a jet pack in zero G with no ground to drag my feet on. Do the astronauts get real good at a spacewar video game, or is the whole thing controlled by a computer, or what? What happens if a jet pack fails or runs out of fuel while they're out on EVA? (The same thing that happens if the engine fails or runs out of fuel in an airplane, I guess.) ------------------------------ Date: 6 February 1984 02:35 EST From: Robert Elton Maas Subject: Shoddy AP news-reporting again To: SPACE @ MIT-MC I saw the following story in the Peninsula Times-Tribune, noticed the discrepancy in hundredths vs. thousandths of seconds, went online to check the original story, found the same discrepancy: a222 1408 03 Feb 84 AM-Space Shuttle, Bjt,790 URGENT Shuttle Back in Space, Deploys Satellite By HARRY F. ROSENTHAL Associated Press Writer CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) - The shuttle soared back into space Friday ... ... ... The 10th space shuttle mission, this one with Challenger, got off to a perfect start in weather that could not have been better. The clock at liftoff stood at 8:00:00:575; the 100-ton shuttle was 57.5 thousandths of a second late getting off. It soared to an orbit 190 miles high, exactly as planned. Apparently Harry Rosenthal can't do 5th-grade arithmetic with decimal. Obviously that's 575 thousands, or 57.5 hundredths, not 57.5 thousands as he reports. If so, why is he writing these scientific stories, trying to impress the readers with his (faulty) arithmetic, and not asking somebody a little better at grade-school arithmetic to check his work? (I know I'm nitpicking, but really publishing something on a news service that has such an illiterate/dumb error can only confuse the poor reader who isn't as smart as I am and actually believes the erroneous calculation; Maybe our school kids are unable to learn because TV and newspapers are barraging them with such mis-information that undermines their attempt to understand anything technical?) ------------------------------ Date: 4 Feb 84 8:39:28-PST (Sat) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: harpo!eagle!allegra!alice!alb @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Second Deployment Delayed NASA today postponed by at least one day the deployment of an Indonesian satellite identical to Westar VI, launched and lost yesterday. ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 07-Feb-84 0302 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #113 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts at MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 113 Today's Topics: MMU walks What's happening up there? Article on maneuvering unit Re: LAUNCH -- MMU Info Western VI Lost in Space Missing satelite ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 06 Feb 84 07:53:41 PST (Mon) To: space@Mit-Mc Subject: MMU walks From: Mike Iglesias Anybody know the schedule for the MMU walks on the shuttle flight? Are any of the networks planning to cover it? ------------------------------ Date: 6 Feb 1984 1112-PST From: Wmartin@OFFICE-3 (Will Martin) Subject: What's happening up there? To: space@MIT-MC Would anyone with knowledge of what's going on with the current shuttle mission, or access to news service articles on the subject, please post all the info you can on the problems that are going on, with the satellite(s) and anything else. I haven't seen any television news coverage on this, and only heard a few sparse reports on radio. I am getting the impression that this mission has been an unmitigated disaster, and I hope to hear that things are not as bad as they seem. Also, I foolishly lost or misplaced the list of frequencies on which the space flight center ham radio club is retransmitting the NASA audio feed of the ground-to-shuttle communications. Could someone please post that list? Thanks much! Will Martin ------------------------------ Date: 6 Feb 1984 13:12:52 EST (Monday) From: Stephen X. Nahm Subject: Article on maneuvering unit To: ihnp4!cbosgd!mark@ucb-vax Cc: space@mit-mc There's a lengthy article on the manned maneuvering unit in last week's Aviation and Space Technology Week (January 23, 1984). It covers in detail how the astronauts trained for the mission, and there are some photos of the training aparatus. They showed a mockup of the Solar Max satellite - I was surprised to see how large it is. For some reason I had the idea that it was about the size of a breadbox (rather than an elephant). Steve ------------------------------ Date: 3 Feb 84 18:46:02-PST (Fri) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: harpo!eagle!allegra!alice!alb @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: LAUNCH -- MMU Info In-Reply-To: Article <927@cbosgd.UUCP> The jet pack (MMU for manned maneuvering unit) is considered safe by NASA. A primitive version of it was tested inside of Skylab in the 1970's. The pack delivers 6 pounds of thrust, and, together with the astronaut, must propel about 15 to 20 slugs. Therefore, NASA says there is ''no chance'' that a malfunction could send the astronaut soaring away into space. As for fuel, there is more than enough for the planned 1.5 and 3 hour flights. In case the astronaut becomes stranded in space, the shuttle will maneuver close enough for another astronaut in the cargo bay to latch onto Buck Rogers and pull him in. ------------------------------ Date: 3 Feb 84 18:42:30-PST (Fri) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: harpo!eagle!allegra!alice!alb @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Western VI Lost in Space The Challenger crew toady ejected Western VI, a Western Union satellite, from the cargo bay today on schedule. The ejection and initial firing of the satellite kick motor went well, but somewhere into the ascent to geosynchronous orbit, all contact with the satellite was lost. At the moment, there is no further information on what happened, and the satellite is considered lost in space. Western Union paid $10 million for the launch. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 7 Feb 84 03:36 EST From: Schauble@MIT-MULTICS.ARPA Subject: Missing satelite To: Space@MIT-MC.ARPA Message-ID: <840207083605.484192@MIT-MULTICS.ARPA> As I follow the (poor) news stories here, the missing satelite has been located in an orbit very like that of the shittle. Correct? Is there a good reason why they don't just go back and pick it up?? Paul ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 08-Feb-84 0303 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #114 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts at MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 114 Today's Topics: Westar VI Possibly Found -- Palapa B to be Launched MMU Tests Shuttle Follies Shuttle audio frequencies One small step 1984 Space Lectures What's happening up there? / summary Missing satelite Re: Westar VI Possibly Found -- Palapa B to be Launched Re: LAUNCH ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 5 Feb 84 9:13:49-PST (Sun) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: harpo!eagle!allegra!alice!alb @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Westar VI Possibly Found -- Palapa B to be Launched NORAD radar said yesterday that two of the seventeen chunks of debris orbiting above and behind the Challenger were big enough to be the remains of Westar VI and its rocket. Yesterday, ground stations received faint signals on the Westar frequency, too faint to lock on to. Western Union has said that if it is indeed the satellite, which it looks like it is, it is useless anyway, since there is now way to move it to geosynchronous orbit. There are speculations that the PAM malfunction, sending the satellite pinwheeling instead of soraing up. Meanwhile, Indonesia gave NASA permission to deploy its satellite Monday morning at around 1100 EST. ------------------------------ Date: 7 Feb 1984 10:00 EST (Tue) Message-ID: From: David Siegel Subject: MMU Tests To: space@MIT-MC I just watched some of the live TV coverage of the MMU workouts. They really looked like they were out of a science fiction movie. The success of the MMU tests make up for the satellite booster problems. Be sure to catch the TV coverage of the testing being done on Thursday. ------------------------------ Date: 7 Feb 1984 8:56-PST From: dietz%USC-CSE@ECLA.ECLnet To: space@MIT-MC.ARPA Subject: Shuttle Follies Reply-To: dietz@USC-ECL.ARPA Well, now they've lost two satellites and a balloon (the spacewalk seems to be going well, though). The satellites used identical PAM's, with fuel from the same batch. This seems to be a problem with the shuttle: since satellites are launched in groups if problems are found with one you can't easily fix the others without bringing them back to Earth and lanuching again -- very expensive. One news story I heard suggested the PAM nozzles shattered. Could the PAM failures have been caused by damage inflicted during the shuttle launch? I wonder -- maybe the vibrations were very bad in the payload bay this time. Were the satellites stored at the rear end of the cargo bay? This would be very bad news for the shuttle program (and very goods for Ariane). The use of a balloon for a radar target was pretty stupid. Why not just use a radar corner reflector? The Westar (at least) seems to be in a low elliptical orbit, reachable from the shuttle. Unfortunately, no one imagined that the satellites could end up in such orbits, so neither satellite has an adaptor for repairmen to grab onto (like Solar Max does). As a result, they can't be despun safely to be put back into the shuttle. I've heard future satellites will have such devices, which should help reduce insurance rates. Some other shuttle problems (not related to this flight): recall that UV telescope on the Spacelab mission? It failed completely. One theory on why it failed was interference from the surface glow detected on forward facing shuttle surfaces, possibly caused by the interaction of high velocity oxygen atoms with the shuttle. There is some concern that this glow will make the Space Telescope useless in low orbits (in orbits the shuttle can reach). ------------------------------ Date: 7 Feb 84 10:40:46 PST (Tue) From: Andy Cromarty Subject: Shuttle audio frequencies To: space@mit-mc According to a (locally retransmitted) ARRL bulletin, an amateur radio group in Maryland will retransmit the shuttle audio for the spacewalk and the shuttle landing. (Note that one spacewalk has already occurred as of this writing.) Frequencies are (all MHz, single-sideband): 3.860, 7.185, 14.295, 21.390, and 28.650. For those in the D.C. area, retransmissions will also appear on 147.450 MHz (simplex). Times are as follows: Spacewalk: 1200Z (7 a.m. Eastern, 4 a.m. Pacific) 10-Feb Landing: 11-Feb (time unknown) The message I copied was ambiguous as to time of landing; it may also be at 1200Z. Andy Cromarty, N6JLJ ------------------------------ Date: Tuesday, 7 February 1984 18:30:17 EST From: David.Smith@CMU-CS-IUS To: space@mc Subject: One small step Message-ID: <1984.2.7.23.16.33.David.Smith@CMU-CS-IUS> "That may have been one small step for Neil, but it was one heck of a big leap for me." -- Bruce McCandless, upon shoving off untethered from Challenger (My apologies for any transcription errors.) P.S. I have heard several replays of Armstrong's words, and have never been able to make out the "a". He probably just slightly flubbed his line. But there are precedents for correcting a speech for the written record. P.P.S. I can't remember his words, but Bryant Gumbel said some inane thing to the effect that the spacewalk was dangerous because the astronaut was not being held up by the shuttle. ------------------------------ Date: 7 Feb 1984 1612-PST Subject: 1984 Space Lectures From: Alan R. Katz To: bboard@USC-ISIF, bboard@USC-ECL, space-enthusiasts@MIT-MC, sf-lovers@RUTGERS cc: katz@USC-ISIF This year, the Organization for the Advancement of Space Industrialization and Settlement (OASIS/L5) will be presenting a monthly lecture series entitled "Beyond 1984--Visions of the Future." The first of these lectures will be: Space and the Nuclear Arms Race Dr. J. Peter Vajk (Author of "Doomsday has been Cancelled") The lecture will begin at 7:00 pm on Saturday, Feb. 15 at the California Museum of Science and Industry's Kinsey Auditorium. Admission is $2.00 for OASIS/L5 members and students and $3.00 for all others. Future lectures in the series include: Ray Bradbury, March 27, at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory George Butler, April 28, back at the Kinsey Auditorium on Space Stations Kraft Ehricke, May 19, at Rockwell International's DEI room Gene Roddenberry, July 17, at the Glendale High School Auditorium, as a part of the Spaceweek celebration honoring the 15th anniversary of the first moon landing. (NOTE: For the Roddenberry lecture, advanced purchase of tickets will be required). The OASIS/L5 phone machine is at (213)374-1381. In my opinion, the lecturers for this series are among the best and most interesting speakers on Space. Tell your friends. Alan (Katz@ISIF) ------------------------------ Date: 8 February 1984 01:03 EST From: Robert Elton Maas Subject: What's happening up there? / summary To: Wmartin @ OFFICE-3 cc: SPACE @ MIT-MC Summary (for those who don't want to wade through AP/NYT stories at 300 baud): First satellite had a bad rocket, so instead of a circular 22,500-mile (I don't know whether that's above the ground or above the center of the Earth, do you know? There's a 4000-mile difference, about one part in five, which is pretty significant.) orbit it got only to a 100-by-300-mile (appx) orbit (these are miles from ground, not from center of Earth!). Balloon to use as radar practice target burst, but they got servicable results from the remains as they drifted away. Second satellite went just like the first. - Both satellites seem to be functionning but in useless orbit. (I wonder if they'll go up and snarf up those two satellites and fit them with new rockets and try again, before it's too late and they burn up in the atmosphere?) Spacefloat (not walk!) went perfectly this morning. ------------------------------ Date: 8 February 1984 01:09 EST From: Robert Elton Maas Subject: Missing satelite To: Schauble @ MIT-MULTICS cc: SPACE @ MIT-MC Date: Tue, 7 Feb 84 03:36 EST From: Schauble@MIT-MULTICS.ARPA As I follow the (poor) news stories here, the missing satelite has been located in an orbit [corrected: with perigee near the STS orbit; and both satellites, not just one] Is there a good reason why they don't just go back and pick it up?? At perigee, the satellites are traveling much faster than STS (enough to drive them up a couple hundred miles higher at apogee), while at apogee the satellites are too high up. I doubt it's feasible to fetch it back this mission, but with suitable planning and a "space bicicle" it may be possible to snarf both satellites some later mission, at least I hope. If that mission were done, it would really prove the use of the manned STS as contrasted with unmanned Arianne and Atlas/Saturn/... ------------------------------ Date: 5 Feb 84 13:30:13-PST (Sun) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: ihnp4!cbosgd!mark @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: Westar VI Possibly Found -- Palapa B to be Launched In-Reply-To: Article <2574@alice.UUCP> What are the chances of the shuttle picking up one or two large pieces of the Westar from orbit and either repairing it or bringing it back down to Earth for repairs by WU? I seem to recall that this was one of the purposes of the shuttle - repair of faulty satellites. Since the remains are a few hundred miles behind the shuttle, is it possible to slow down briefly to wait for it, or would this destroy the orbit? Or could they pick it up on the next mission? ------------------------------ Date: 7 Feb 84 5:43:00-PST (Tue) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: hplabs!hao!denelcor!lmc @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: LAUNCH In-Reply-To: Article <927@cbosgd.UUCP> I'm not really sure myself how they navigate a space walk, but I watched Vance Brand and several other astronauts navigate a mockup of the Teleoperator Retrieval System (you know, the one that was supposed to save Skylab) about 4 years ago. We programmed the worst case coning motion into the Skylab, and those people could hit the docking ring without hesitating, time after time. (The TRS was a rocket motor carrying a TV camera and a docking ring, controlled from the Shuttle flight deck with two joysticks for 6 degree-of-freedom control.) The champion at the time was the astronaut who was pilot for the US-USSR docking - seems he spent a year with the controls glued in his hand. Since most TV games have two degrees of freedom, I guess you can see the point. -- Lyle McElhaney (hao,brl-bmd,nbires,csu-cs,scgvaxd)!denelcor!lmc ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 09-Feb-84 0303 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #115 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts at MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 115 Today's Topics: Westar found: what a relief Re: inter-stellar travel - (nf) bring back the satellites The Lost Satellites A movie not to miss. Soyuz, 3M Correction on lecture Re: NASA lexicon Palapa B Fate Unknown Slight Correction of PAM Monitoring Re: Orbiting Debris Found ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 6 Feb 84 7:17:18-PST (Mon) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: ihnp4!ihuxa!trough @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Westar found: what a relief Whew! I'm glad Westar finally showed up! I was afraid that someone's antisatellite weaponry was more advanced then we thought! :-) ------------------------------ Date: 7 Feb 84 4:05:11-PST (Tue) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: hplabs!zehntel!dual!fortune!rpw3 @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: inter-stellar travel - (nf) #R:sri-arpa:-1633800:fortune:10200010:000:737 fortune!rpw3 Feb 7 03:44:00 1984 If I remember correctly, there was a pair of Fred Hoyle (or Hoyle and Hoyle) novels a long time ago (one of them called "A for Andromeda") in which we started hearing signals from "out there" which we decoded into instructions for making a computer which first tried to take over, and when that didn't work, got us to "build" a biomechanism that was in fact a pretty girl, alive and active. Piers Anthony's "Macroscope" had a similar theme, as did John Varley's "Ophiuchi Hotline" and related stories. Now, if we can only find another race to beam ourselves too... Rob Warnock UUCP: {sri-unix,amd70,hpda,harpo,ihnp4,allegra}!fortune!rpw3 DDD: (415)595-8444 USPS: Fortune Systems Corp, 101 Twin Dolphins Drive, Redwood City, CA 94065 ------------------------------ Date: 8 Feb 1984 10:11 EST (Wed) Message-ID: From: David Siegel Subject: bring back the satellites To: space@MIT-MC The two satellites have a small supply of fuel. They say there is not enough fuel to get them to geosyncronous orbit, but I bet they have enough to get them in an ideal orbit for the shuttle to grab them. Even though no special hook to attach on to was designed into the satellites, I would guess they could find something to grab. So, why not plan a mission to bring them back? ------------------------------ Date: 8 Feb 84 10:30:24 PST (Wednesday) From: Jef Poskanzer Subject: The Lost Satellites In-reply-to: OTA's message of 08 Feb 84 03:03 PST To: Space@MIT-MC.ARPA I'll bet the ham radio people could make use of the satellites. However, I doubt they will be allowed to. Oh well. ------------------------------ Date: 08 Feb 84 1351 PST From: Ross Finlayson Subject: A movie not to miss. To: space@MIT-MC a018 2330 07 Feb 84 PM-Space Shuttle, Bjt,600 Today's Shuttle Highlight: Movie Stars in the Stars By HOWARD BENEDICT AP Aerospace Writer CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) - Challenger's astronauts star in a panoramic movie being shot by colleague ''Cecil B.'' McNair as their schedule called for rest and experiments today before the next tetherless space walk. The set was the biggest ever, the world below, the stars above. The space travelers, after five bittersweet, busy days in orbit, welcomed some relaxation before winding down the journey with more outside tests of their jet-pack on Thursday, a news conference from space Friday and the shuttle's first landing in Florida on Saturday. Today's filming sessions, with a special Cinema-360 camera, were to capture footage for a half-hour documentary, ''The Space Shuttle: An American Adventure.'' The finished film, which will put audiences in the center of the 360-degree action, is designed for projection onto the domes of specially-equipped planetariums. It is to be completed after two more shuttle missions. Mission specialist Ronald McNair is the man behind the lens, prompting his colleagues to call him ''Cecil B. McNair'' after famed movie director Cecil B. de Mille. Most of today's footage will be of activities inside the cabin. Some of the most spectacular film was made Tuesday by a second Cinema-360 camera, located in the open cargo bay and operated remotely from inside the shuttle. That captured man's first free flights in space, as astronauts Bruce McCandless and Robert Stewart unhooked their lifelines and maneuvered away from Challenger, propelled by a $10 million jet-powered backpack to a distance greater than the length of a football field. McCandless flew the jet-pack for 90 minutes, calling it a ''nice flying machine.'' Stewart glided around for 65 minutes and said it operated ''beautifully.'' When the space-walkers re-entered the cabin after 5 hours, 55 minutes outside, mission control congratulated them on a super job. ''It was a real thrill,'' responded McCandless. ''A real honor to be up there.'' McCandless and Stewart are scheduled to be back outside Thursday for five more hours. The backpack will be used for a satellite repair mission planned on the next shuttle flight in April. On that flight astronaut George Nelson is to use the jet-pack to retrieve a 4-year-old satellite named Solar Max, bringing it into the cargo bay for replacement of a defective electronics box. McCandless and Stewart on Thursday will use a spinning device to perfect techniques for securing the slowly rotating Solar Max and will test tools needed for the repair job. The rescue of the Solar Max satellite also will be filmed by the Cinema-360 cameras. The successful space walks erased some of the disappointment the astronauts felt at the failure of the two communications satellites they launched for Western Union and the Indonesian government earlier in the flight. The astronauts deployed the payloads properly, but the satellites did not reach the desired orbits because rockets aboard each misfired. ap-ny-02-08 0229EDT ********** ------------------------------ Date: 8 Feb 1984 11:58-PST From: dietz%USC-CSE@ECLA.ECLnet To: space@MIT-MC.ARPA Subject: Soyuz, 3M The Soviets launch of three cosmonauts brings the number of people in space to 8, a record. 3M and NASA have made a joint announcement about a 3M program to grow organic crystals and thin films in microgravity. 3M could have an experiment on an August shuttle flight. ------------------------------ Date: 8 Feb 1984 1950-PST Subject: Correction on lecture From: Alan R. Katz To: bboard@USC-ISIF, bboard@USC-ECL, space-enthusiasts@MIT-MC, sf-lovers@RUTGERS cc: katz@USC-ISIF The date for the Peter Vajk lecture SHOULD have read Feb. 25 (Saturday night) at 7:00 pm. The rest of the dates are correct. Sorry for the typo! Alan ------- ------------------------------ Date: 6 Feb 84 16:22:44-PST (Mon) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: hplabs!hao!seismo!flinn @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: NASA lexicon In-Reply-To: Article <117@statvax.UUCP> Not only are most of the terms in the NASA buzzword collection a year old, the majority of them are at least eight years old - I started the collection when I first went to NASA in 1975. ------------------------------ Date: 6 Feb 84 12:39:06-PST (Mon) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: harpo!eagle!allegra!alice!alb @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Palapa B Fate Unknown The Challenger crew today dispatched Palapa-B from the shuttle and this time kept the shuttle oriented so that they could see the PAM fire. The firing went well, but nearly three hours later, Indonesia still had not received confirmation from the satellite that it had achieved the proper orbit, a message that usually comes 90 minutes after the firing. Officials are hoping that the satellite is just oriented wrong, but they do not know. ------------------------------ Date: 6 Feb 84 13:50:44-PST (Mon) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: harpo!eagle!allegra!alice!alb @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Slight Correction of PAM Monitoring I erred slightly. The Challengeer was not oriented so that the crew could see the PAM burn; NASA has always kept the shuttle turned away to avoid windshield damage. However, a camera was mounted on the end of the RMS and pointed so that it could capture the PAM burn on film. That is how NASA and the astronauts saw the firing. ------------------------------ Date: 6 Feb 84 17:14:57-PST (Mon) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: harpo!eagle!mhuxl!aluxp!wrbull @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: Orbiting Debris Found In-Reply-To: Article <2573@alice.UUCP> NASA reported that the second satellite also failed to achieve its intended orbit. One of the network news reported that the PAM was a solid booster, but I find that hard to believe since solids are not solid booster, But thats hard to believe since solids are not really that "delicate" to put a payload in geosynch. Does anybody know what propellant the PAM uses? ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 10-Feb-84 0303 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #116 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts at MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 116 Today's Topics: Re: Orbiting Debris Found Palapa B Found in Useless Orbit Thoughts on Westar/Palapa Re: Westar VI Possibly Found -- Palapa B to be Launched ham use of "lost" satellites "The Sky's No Limit" space balloons and oxygen glow Lost Satellites pam composition EVA Flawless ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 6 Feb 84 19:37:14-PST (Mon) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: harpo!eagle!allegra!alice!alb @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: Orbiting Debris Found The PAM is indeed a solid rocket booster. However, I am unsure of just what propellant it uses. ------------------------------ Date: 6 Feb 84 19:36:01-PST (Mon) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: harpo!eagle!allegra!alice!alb @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Palapa B Found in Useless Orbit Palapa B, ejected by the Challenger today, was found in a useless orbit of 172 by 750 miles, far short of its projected 22,300 mile orbit and similar to that of its twin, Westar VI. The failure is the third major setback of 41B. Tomorrow, the astronauts will attempt the spacewalk using the new jet backpacks. ------------------------------ Date: 7 Feb 84 23:32:49-PST (Tue) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: harpo!eagle!allegra!karn @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Thoughts on Westar/Palapa A few comments and bits of information regarding the Westar/Palapa fiasco. I talked with some of my friends in the satellite business today who have heard some of the details which don't make it through the "noisy channel" known as the media. The "working theory" regarding the PAM failure has to do with an overpressure in the engine caused by a temporarily blocked nozzle. The nozzle could have been blocked by a plug of initiator material which could have become rigid if the temperature was too low. After the engine had burnt for a while, the pressure eventually blew the nozzle apart. Once this happened, the chamber pressure dropped too low to sustain combustion, and the engine "flamed out". It seems there was a minor design change made to both PAMs before this mission, and... Contrary to what you may have heard, it is indeed possible to stop a solid fuel motor once it has started in a vacuum by doing just this - blowing the nozzle off and reducing the chamber pressure. For example, the solid fuel kick motor flown on AMSAT Phase 3-A (the one that was lost in 1980) was originally designed as a terminal vernier for a Titan ICBM. It had a deliberate "thrust termination feature" which involves blowing off the nozzle - needless to say, we didn't need this feature. Western Union (and the Indonesian government, assuming their satellite is in the same condition as Westar) has several options. Westar has a full load of hydrazine and, presumably, a good apogee kick motor. With these they could: 1. Circularize the orbit at its apogee altitude of 750 miles. It would be stable here indefinitely, but not very useful for communications. 2. Fire the apogee kick motor to place the satellite in a highly elliptical orbit resembling, interestingly enough, that of AMSAT Oscar-10. Here someone could theoretically get a few hours per day use out of the satellite while at apogee, where it would move slowly enough to be tracked. 3. Upon request of NORAD to "keep the skies clean", they could fire the kick motor to cause the satellite to re-enter the atmosphere and burn up. Obviously, all of these suggestions remove any possibility of shuttle retrieval. However, if I look at my STS user's manual, I note that the shuttle is in fact capable of reaching fairly high apogees in ELLIPTICAL orbits. With integral tanking, it could carry a full load to a 28 deg 185 x 900 km orbit assuming that the deorbit burn is done from apogee. With several OMS kits (extra fuel tanks) in place of payload, it could reach 1500 km (1 tank) 2250 km (2 tanks), etc. On the other hand, it would be much easier if the satellites could be dropped back to their circular 185 km orbits just before retrieval. I don't know if there is enough hydrazine on board to do that. In any event there would be a LOT of practical problems (how do you grab the satellite, reattach a new PAM, refuel the hydrazine tanks, and re-deploy the satellite when it wasn't designed for this kind of operation?) Still makes an interesting problem for speculation, and at a total stake of $200 M, who knows? They might just try it. Phil ------------------------------ Date: 6 Feb 84 3:20:23-PST (Mon) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: harpo!ulysses!gamma!exodus!mhtsa!mh3bs!eagle!allegra!alice!alb @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: Westar VI Possibly Found -- Palapa B to be Launched Westar VI, being a geosynchronous satellite that was supposed to be in an orbit inaccessible to the shuttle, was not designed to be rescued in space. Satellites, such as solar max, which are to be picked up by the shuttle, have special hardware (such as things for the RMS to grasp) for that purpose. As for moving the shuttle to Westar VI this mission, NASA said that would take too much fuel. ------------------------------ From: vortex!lauren at RAND-UNIX Date: Thu, 9-Feb-84 03:50:18-PST Sender: Lauren Weinstein Subject: ham use of "lost" satellites Message-ID: <8402090350.00196cVT2.1@vortex.UUCP> To: SPACE@MC Actually, some of us have talked about this, and the poor things really won't be useful. First of all, hams aren't licensed for 4/6 GHz. operations. Secondly, the antennas on those birds are too directional to be useful from such low orbits -- they were designed for use from 22K miles out ... not 150. --Lauren-- ------------------------------ Date: 7 Feb 84 20:41:00-PST (Tue) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: harpo!eagle!allegra!karn @ Ucb-Vax Subject: "The Sky's No Limit" I'm sure there's going to be a lot of flaming on this topic, so I just wanted to be the first to pan it. I came home this evening to find the aforementioned made-for-TV movie on CBS. It was a "fictionalized" account of the trials and tribulations of the first three female shuttle astronauts. Nano review: Space-adaptation-syndrome inducing (ie., nauseating) Micro review: Charlie's Angels do The Right Stuff with Sensitivity and Feeling Short review (lest I get too worked up): This is exactly the kind of trash I've come to expect from network TV. I just hope that the average person is intelligent enough to realize that this movie is a pure Hollywood fantasy (i.e, complete bullshit). While it purports to champion wonderful advances by women, it drips with condescension, terrible acting and an incredibly corny, melodramatic script. ("Will the brave young astronautess overcome the crushing loss of her astronaut husband in an air crash? Will she stick with the grueling program despite the hypochondriac ploys of her chauvinist pig father who has tried to stop her every achievment in life? Can her husband talk her out of dropping out of the program? Will she get out the "ring around the collar" of her spacesuit without spoiling her hairdo?") Ugh. Zero stars. Stinker of the week. Your faithful movie reviewer, Phil ------------------------------ Date: 9 Feb 1984 09:57-EST From: Hank.Walker@CMU-CS-VLSI.ARPA Subject: space balloons and oxygen glow To: space@mit-mc Message-Id: <445186645/dmw@CMU-CS-VLSI> Using balloons as radar reflectors is not a stupid idea. It is an old idea that's worked before. Remember Echo? The main proponent of the oxygen glow off the shuttle ruining the UV telescope experiments is the experimenter. Lots of other people think that he just overexposed. Other experiments weren't affected. ------------------------------ Date: 9 Feb 1984 1309-PST Sender: WMARTIN at OFFICE-3 Subject: Lost Satellites From: WMartin at Office-3 (Will Martin) To: space at MIT-MC Message-ID: <[OFFICE-3] 9-Feb-84 13:09:32.WMARTIN> Re the statement in Space #114: "Indonesia gave NASA permission to deploy its satellite Monday morning..." Did the Indonesian government or telecommunications authority have a chance to review the data about the launch and loss of Westar, or was this "permission" something more like a long-since pre-arranged "Go ahead, our ground stations are ready", as opposed to "We have analyzed the data and think a deployment is worth the risk of losing the satellite"? If the latter, how does this affect the insurance payment -- if I was the insuror, I would charge them with participatory negligence (or some such legalese) to try to get out of paying. Who is the insuror, anyway? Lloyds of London? Who owned the Indonesian satellite, by the way? Did the Indonesian PTT or government take title before deployment, or does it still belong to the manufacturer? If I was buying one, I would think that I would not accept title or delivery until a fully-functioning satellite was in the proper orbit, but I guess that would be the most expensive way to go. Assuming the risks should drop the price, I suppose. If whoever had the authority had had the sense to cancel the deployment of the Indonesian satellite and left it in the cargo bay to be brought back, what problems would that cause? It's "n" kilograms of unplanned weight still aboard for landing -- would that have had any effect? How about the still-fueled booster? (I'm thinking here of the way military planes dump unexpended ordnance before landing -- is there a similar danger?) How long would it take to check out a returned satellite/booster and reschedule it for a future shuttle mission? How long will it NOW take to build another satellite and booster and schedule it for a future deployment? (Plus the time to redesign those lousy boosters...) Are these commo satellites being churned out on an assembly line now, or are they still handcrafted one-of-a-kind made-to-order items? The balloon burst was embarassing, but still an internal NASA problem. The satellite losses, even if thy were no fault of NASA's, are failures to deliver the results promised (or at least strongly implied!) to customers. This is BAD NEWS from a PR and future sales standpoint. Especially if it turns out that something like launch vibrations screwed up the boosters, NASA won't be able to get out from under the blame by claiming to just be "delivery truck drivers". If they didn't have any restrictions on getaway specials and cargo items, and just sold space aboard at set prices on a first-come, first-served basis [yeah, probably the USSR would buy up all the facilities!], they maybe could get away with that attitude. But they don't do that, so they get stuck with the responsibility. If I was the insuror, my lawyers would be tying NASA up in legal actions for years -- how extensively were the boosters tested, what information did you have after the first deployment, what did you tell the parties involved, etc., etc. And the insurance rates for any future shuttle satellite deployments would be astronomical. I fear this mission is going to have long-lasting ill effects on the future of the shuttle's commercial use. It will take two or three absolutely perfect missions in a row to erase this stigma. The saddest part is that I doubt that NASA was at fault, so they are getting shafted without any justification. Will Martin ------------------------------ Date: 9 Feb 1984 19:01-EST From: Hank.Walker@CMU-CS-VLSI.ARPA Subject: pam composition To: space@mit-mc Message-Id: <445219295/dmw@CMU-CS-VLSI> The PAM rocket (as described in the New York Times, Aviation Week, any major paper, etc) is a solid rocket made by Morton-Thiokol, who makes lots of solid rockets (I don't remember if they make the SRBs). The PAM module itself is made by Douglas. Geosynchronous orbit isn't achieved with just one burn. There is another smaller rocket inside the satellite that fires at apogee to circularize the orbit. Plus there are thrusters, so you don't have to hit orbit all with one shot (you can't get a circular orbit that way anyway). And since many folks don't seem to read the paper, I might as well add that the two rockets that failed came from a batch of 5, and so they are going to look at the remaining ones to figure out what went wrong, before the next PAM-launched satellite mission in May or June. As to grabbing the satellites and bringing them back, the standard Hughes design used for both satellites has a smooth photocell exterior that spins at a pretty good rate, and surface telescopes down to expose more photocell area, so the only real place to grab on is near the antennas. It is not clear how you'd stop the smooth spinning exterior. For Solar Max, an astronaut will just hook on to the side and fire some thrusters on the MMU to stop its spin. ------------------------------ Date: 8 Feb 84 3:20:24-PST (Wed) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: harpo!eagle!allegra!alice!alb @ Ucb-Vax Subject: EVA Flawless Two Challenger astronauts yesterday became the first men in history to walk untethered in space. Propelled by their backpacks, they strayed 300 feet from the shuttle before turning back. ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 14-Feb-84 0303 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #117 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts at MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 117 Today's Topics: Grabbing Lost Satellites [REM: bring back the satellites] satellite insurance Burst Balloon ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 9 Feb 84 22:14 EST From: Charles Weems Return-Path: Subject: Grabbing Lost Satellites To: space@mit-mc It's not as simple as just grabbing them any old place you can get ahold of them and pulling them back into the payload bay of the shuttle. The satellites are purposely spun up to a fairly high rotation rate (I saw the figure 50 RPM quoted in one article). The problem is that you must grab onto them at a point on the spin axis and gradually slow them down before they can be brought into the bay. A sudden stop would destroy the satellite. This requires that there be something to grab onto at only one of two points. One of those points is at the "top" of the satellite where antennas and such are deployed. Grabbing onto something here would probably do a great deal of damage. On the other end is the point that the PAM connects -- but nobody knows for sure now just what is there. Mangled booster pieces? Another problem is that most of these satellites are programmed to fully deploy antennas and booms and such some fixed time after the burn. This way even if things don't quite go right (an understatement in this case) the satellite can start transmitting and trying to pick up corrective orders from the ground. How much volume does a fully deployed communications satellite take up? Can it fit back into the shuttle without "breaking pieces off"? If not, it will have to be brought home for repairs, thus requiring a total of three shuttle launches to get it into orbit (not to mention the cost of all of the repairs, testing, reconfiguring for launch and strapping on another PAM). Then there is the problem of getting the shuttle into the "difficult" orbits that the satellites are in -- and it really must be able to match the orbit closely because the time required to hook on and spin down will probably be several orbital periods long. All in all, it's easier to collect the insurance. A note on Solar Max -- it is also true that Solar Max is spinning like Westar and Palapa-B. Solar Max, however, was DESIGNED to be serviced by the shuttle. It was known that it would be in an orbit reachable by the shuttle and in an uncharacteristic fit of forethought its designers built a special adapter into one end of it that will allow the suttle to grab on easily and spin it down for service (and back up for redeployment). Because these communications satellites were intended to operate at geosynchronous orbit, beyond the range of the shuttle, it was considered a waste of weight to put shuttle servicing adapters on them just in case something unlikely (such as what happened) occurred. We all have 20-20 hindsight now. chip weems ------------------------------ Date: 10 Feb 1984 09:42 EST (Fri) Message-ID: From: David Siegel To: space@MIT-MC Subject: [REM: bring back the satellites] Date: Thursday, 9 February 1984 21:06-EST From: Robert Elton Maas To: DMS Re: bring back the satellites I suggest making a grappling adaptor. On one end it has a clamp that will grab ahold of some random part of the satellite. On the other end it has a standard adaptor like the solar max mission has, for the shuttle to hook onto. So the astronaut with backpack just docks with the satellite and attaches the grappling adaptor, then despins the satellite and proceeds with the usual procedure. ------------------------------ From: vortex!lauren at RAND-UNIX Date: Fri, 10-Feb-84 04:42:23-PST Sender: Lauren Weinstein Subject: satellite insurance Message-ID: <8402100442.00716cVT2.1@vortex.UUCP> To: SPACE@MC My guess is that both W.U. and Indonesia will simply take their insurance money and make no effort to recover or otherwise make use of their "low-orbit" satellites. It'll be interesting to see how much the insurance premiums have shot up for the next deployment. --Lauren-- ------------------------------ Date: 10 Feb 1984 8:15-PST From: dietz%USC-CSE@ECLA.ECLnet To: space@MIT-MC.ARPA Cc: Hank.Walker@CMU-CS-VLSI.ARPA Subject: Burst Balloon Reply-To: dietz@USC-ECL.ARPA As I recall, the Echo satellite also deflated after a short time. Even if balloons have worked before it's silly to use a complex system with lots of moving parts (balloon + inflation system) when a simple device with no moving parts (corner reflector) will do the trick. ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 15-Feb-84 0325 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #118 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts at MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 118 Today's Topics: lost satellite Thiokol rocket boosters. Re:comsat too smooth to latch onto, and spinning too fast Satellite Rescue Cancelled flight Satellite Insurance Owen Garriott to speak at conference What are these stars/planets? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri 10 Feb 84 11:25:51-PST From: Wilkins Subject: lost satellite To: space@MIT-MC.ARPA Regarding Will Martin's comment that NASA will be blamed and lawyers may tie them up for years - - I was wondering what NASA actually promises these people and who chooses the PAM rockets. I basically have no idea. Is it more like "give us a satellite and we'll attach this PAM, carry it up and fire it off" or is it more like "give us a satellite with a rocket of your choice and we'll drop it up there and let your rocket do its thing", or somethin in between? Certainly, NASA is in more trouble in the former case. Anyone know the details of these agreements? David ------------------------------ Date: Fri 10 Feb 84 17:43:04-PST From: William "Chops" Westfield Subject: Thiokol rocket boosters. To: space@S1-A.ARPA BC-MORTON-02-10 By Daniel Rosenheim (c) 1984 Chicago Sun-Times (Independent Press Service) CHICAGO - Morton Thiokol Chairman Charles S. Locke said Thursday the company is exploring all conceivable causes for this week's space shuttle satellite failures, including the possibility of sabotage. Following a presentation to the Investment Analysts Society of Chicago, Locke told reporters he had no concrete basis to suspect sabotage, but he added the company hasn't ruled out anything. ''It is just one of the things we're wondering about,'' said Locke, whose company makes the rocket motors used to propel the satellites into orbit. ''I have no specific reason for mentioning it, but what happened sure is strange.'' A board of inquiry into the failure to launch successfully Westar 6 and Palapa B-2 has been assembled by McDonnell Douglas Corp. and includes the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the Air Force, Hughes Aircraft Co. and Morton Thiokol. While Locke stressed the investigation is in an early stage, he said the most likely cause of the aborted satellite sendoff appears to have been the failure of ''exit cones,'' which direct the thrust of rockets used in the launch. The cones were built for Morton Thiokol under a subcontracting arrangement with Hitco, a unit of Armco Inc. ''If an exit cone shatters, it weakens thrust,'' said Locke, noting this week's twin fiascos followed 55 successful test launchings. ''So, we got a satellite in a 200- by 600-mile orbit instead of a 200- by 23,000-mile orbit.'' Locke said Morton Thiokol experienced a comparable problem last summer, when a potentially dangerous weakness developed in a heat shield protecting a shuttle booster-rocket nozzle. He said a probe found the heat shield's construction formula had been changed by another subcontractor, Beatrice Foods Co.'s Fiberite unit. Although Locke said the ''entire space program rests on being able to solve'' the satellite problem, he expressed confidence in the outcome and added that he expects no negative repercussions for Morton Thiokol. ''You are bound to have problems such as these,'' agreed William Blair & Co. analyst Robert Bartels, who recalled the persistent difficulties with heat-shield tiles slipping off earlier shuttles. Locke said the cost of the failed satellites will be borne by insurers, notably Lloyds of London, asserting there is no possibility of recourse against the firm. Noting that Morton Thiokol has 100 percent of the market for space shuttle rocket booster motors, Locke said any NASA attempt to develop a second supplier would cost a virtually prohibitive $200 million and probably take five years. Indeed, Locke said he expects Morton Thiokol's aerospace revenue to grow from $700 million in fiscal 1984 to $1 billion within ''the next couple years.'' A large portion of that increase will be derived from the company's solid-rocket booster motors, which supply 80 percent of the thrust needed to put space shuttles in orbit, and which gross Morton Thiokol $18 million per launch. Despite the possibility that persistent failures could cause delays, NASA currently estimates the shuttle prorgam will grow from last year's four launchings to nine this year to 24 by 1987. Morton Thiokol - which has salt, specialty chemicals and household products divisions, in addition to aerospace - has gone through an extensive restructuring in the past seven years, culminating in the 1982 merger between MortonNorwich and Thiokol Corp. Locke expressed satisfaction with the company's present composition and said he expects neither major acquisitions nor divestitures in the foreseeable future. Separately, Locke said he expects Morton Thiokol's earnings per share to grow 20 percent to 26 percent to between $6.20 and $6.50 for the fiscal year that ends June 30. Locke also said the household product division has 15 new products in various stages of development. Test-marketing of its Vivid liquid bleach has been sufficiently promising that the product may be rolled out nationally before the end of the year. nyt-02-10-84 0541est ------------------------------ Date: 11 February 1984 18:30 EST From: Robert Elton Maas Subject: Re:comsat too smooth to latch onto, and spinning too fast To: Hank.Walker @ CMU-CS-VLSI cc: SPACE @ MIT-MC If an astronaut can find even one place to latch onto the antenna or whatever, perhaps with gentle anti-torque force the satellite can be gradually slowed down in spinrate? Or maybe drape a large net over it and let brushing with the net equalize spinrates between net and satellite, then the astronaut can latch onto the net instead of the satellite directly for despinning it? ------------------------------ Date: 12 Feb 84 1325 PST From: Rod Brooks Subject: Satellite Rescue To: space@MIT-MC AM-Shuttle-Satellites, Bjt,650 Rescuing Failed Satellites Possible, But Maybe Not Feasible By PAUL RECER AP Aerospace Writer SPACE CENTER, Houston (AP) - NASA could use the shuttle in an attempt to salvage the two $75 million communications satellites now drifting in useless orbits about the Earth, but the difficulty and expense might outweigh the benefits, experts say. The Westar VI and Palapa-B satellites - owned respectively by Western Union and the government of Indonesia - failed to reach their designated 22,300-mile-high orbits after they were launched from the shuttle Challenger on the flight that ended Saturday. Officials at Hughes Aircraft Co., which made the satellites, said in both cases rocket boosters snuffed out early, stranding the satellites in lopsided orbits that bring them as close as 165 miles to Earth at times, and as far as 650 miles at others. Data from the craft indicate they are healthy and could function normally if they were in the high orbit. But neither has enough remaining rocket power to be nudged to the proper elevation, although NASA did just that with a Tracking and Data Relay Satellite that went astray after launch last year. At a post-landing briefing Saturday, shuttle director Lt. Gen. James A. Abrahamson called the idea of using the orbiter to rescue the satellites ''an exciting prospect to think about.'' ''If they (the owners or insurers) ask us to look into it, then we'll begin to do more serious planning,'' he said. The shuttle is already planning to rescue a satellite in April, but that assignment poses far less difficult problems. On that mission, Challenger will rendezvous in low orbit with the Solar Maximum, a science satellite that stopped working because of an electrical problem. Astronauts using a jet-pack and a robot arm will bring the Solar Max into the cargo bay for repairs and then release it back into orbit. Such a rescue is possible on Solar Max because - unlike the communications satellites - it is in a low orbit and was designed to be snared by the shuttle if necessary. Before salvage of the communications satellites could start, scientists would have to bring them to a lower orbit within the shuttle's range, by firing rocket thrusters on board the craft. The shuttle, by special thrusting at launch, can reach an orbit of about 260 miles - as it will on the April flight. ''If the satellite was brought down to an orbit of 260 miles or so, it would be theoretically possible,'' said Dick Young, chief of the flight planning branch at the Johnson Space Center. But even if the satellites were within rendezvous range of the shuttle, there would be significant hardware problems. Both satellites are spinning at about 50 rpm, a twisting motion that keeps them stable but is far too fast for safe approach. There are rockets on board designed to stop the spin, but these might be expended in lowering the orbit, according to Bill Ziegler, a Westar expert with Western Union. Terry Neal, a Johnson flight crew equipment expert who helped plan the April mission, said that even if the spin could be stopped, there would still be the problem of grabbing and holding the satellites. ''It would take some modifications to the orbiter (shuttle spacecraft),'' said Neal. ''And there would have to be some sort of grapple device attached to the satellites.'' Once such a device is attached to the satellite, the shuttle robot arm could grasp the craft and bring it into the cargo bay. Then, said Neal, there would have to be some sort of ''cradle'' to hold the satellite securely in the cargo bay. If the satellite could be secured in the cargo bay, said Neal, it could be brought to Earth for repairs. All this would be expensive for the satellite owners. Total cost of a launch now runs to an estimated $250 million. Ziegler said salvaging Westar ''probably wouldn't make economic sense at all,'' but, he added, it ''would certainly be fun.'' ap-ny-02-12 1316EDT ------------------------------ Date: 13 Feb 84 2120 PST From: Rod Brooks Subject: Cancelled flight To: space@MIT-MC AM-Shuttle-July,330 Hitch in Shuttle Cargo Reported HOUSTON (AP) - The Air Force has postponed the launch of a secret military satellite which was to be put into orbit in a July space shuttle flight, a newspaper says. The decision could cause the cancellation of the flight, the Houston Chronicle said in a story in its Tuesday editions. The Chronicle said an Air Force spokesman at the Johnson Space Center, who was not identified, confirmed Monday that the payload has been pulled from the July flight. That spokesman could not say for certain the flight had been canceled. The source said the Air Force and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration were negotiating a new launch date. But NASA officials told the Chronicle they have not been informed of the Air Force action and that as of now the flight is on their schedule. Air Force officials said they could not say, because of security reasons, why the cargo had been removed, the Chronicle said. But it noted that space agency officials said last week the secret mission was in jeopardy because it was to use an Interim Upper Stage rocket to put the satellite into stationary orbit. One of these rockets failed last April and put its $100 million satellite into the wrong orbit, requiring a long and costly rescue effort. ''If you don't have a cargo, you either seek an alternate mission or cancel the flight,'' John McLeaish, head of public affairs at Johnson Space Center, was quoted as saying. Glynn Lunney, program manager of the shuttle system, has not yet been told that the Air Force has canceled its cargo, McLeaish said. Cancellation of the mission will leave astronauts Thomas Mattingly, Loren Shriver, Ellison Onizuka and James Buchli without a flight for the second time. They were to have flown the shuttle on a military mission last fall. That flight was canceled because of the rocket problems. Cancellation of the flight will leave eight missions on the launch scheduled for this year. ap-ny-02-13 2330EDT ------------------------------ Date: 14-Feb-84 02:51 PST From: William Daul Tymshare OAD Cupertino CA Subject: Satellite Insurance To: space@mit-mc, human-nets@rutgers Cc: DIA.TYM@OFFICE-2, SGK.TYM@OFFICE-2, PAMV.TYM@OFFICE-2 Message-ID: <[OFFICE-2]TYM-WBD-4437W> From COMPUTERWORLD (Feb 13, 1984 p. 11) Will mishap hike insurance rate? NEW YORK -- The insurance industry is feeling repercussions from the failures to properly launch two $75 million communications satellites from the space shuttle Challenger this month. The Westar VI communications satellite owned by Western Union Co. was insured for $105 million; Western Union had paid a premium of about $5.5 million for the policy. Alexander & Alexander Services, Inc., a New York brokerage company, was the underwriter for the policy, according to a Western Union spokesman. ... ------------------------------ Date: 14 Feb 1984 0558-PST Sender: WMARTIN at OFFICE-3 Subject: Owen Garriott to speak at conference From: WMartin at Office-3 (Will Martin) To: Space at MIT-MC Message-ID: <[OFFICE-3]14-Feb-84 05:58:35.WMARTIN> Just noticed this item in looking at the announcement for the Tenth AIAA Communication Satellite Systems Conference, to be held at the Sheraton Twin Towers, Orlando, FL, 19-22 March 84: Special Presentation, Wednesday, 21 March, 5:30PM: Astronaut Participation in Communications Experiments Dr. Owen Garriott, NASA Scientist/Astronaut and Stanford University professor, will describe his communications and scientific experiments on the recent STS-9 mission, illustrated by film clips taken on board the shuttle and Spacelab. [***End extract***] This conference may be of interest to many readers of Space; it's not expensive -- AIAA student memebers = free; student nonmembers = $12; AIAA members or program participants = $140; nonmembers = $190. Not bad for 4 days of conference sessions, technical exhibits, and a bound volume of available papers. There's also two pre-conference colloquia on Sunday, 18 March 84, for $45/$55 (members/nonmembers) on satellite communications basics or on dbs antenna design. Info from: AIAA Communication Satellite Systems Conference 1633 Broadway New York, NY 10019 (no phone number given) Regards, Will Martin ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 14 Feb 84 18:40 PST From: Ross Finlayson Subject: What are these stars/planets? To: space@mit-mc Cc: rsf@Diablo Early this morning (3am PST), after returning from a late night hack attack, I noticed two very bright stars/planets in the south-eastern sky. They seemed to have the same (apparent) brightness. The objects were very close together (slightly less than the width of my index finger at arms length); it was this fact, along with their similar brightness, that made them so noticeable. I couldn't find them on a star chart, so I presume that at least one of them is a planet. Could someone identify these? They're almost impossible to miss. Ross. ps. They weren't moving, so they can't have been planes, satellites or UFOs! ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 16-Feb-84 0303 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #119 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts at MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 119 Today's Topics: Letter to the President Orbital Artillery Re: Grabbing Lost Satellites Recovery of the Lost Satellites RE:What are these stars. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 12 Feb 1984 11:04-PST From: dietz%USC-CSE@ECLA.ECLnet To: space@MIT-MC.ARPA Subject: Letter to the President I'm sending the following letter to President Reagan. You may want to rephrase it and do likewise. ---------------- Mr. President, I'm writing you this letter to tell you about a project that could save US taxpayers tens of billions of dollars, save thousands of lives and bring billions of dollars into the US economy. It's called Geostar. Geostar is a system using four satellites in geosynchronous orbit to precisely determine the position of aircraft. Invented by Gerard O'Neill at Princeton, Geostar is far cheaper than any other proposed air traffic control system. Geostar uses triangulation to determine the position of aircraft to within a few meters, once a second for every aircraft. The positions of all aircraft are kept track of in a ground computer, which detects possible collisions. Messages can be relayed back to the aircraft through the satellites. Geostar is very inexpensive. The transceiver unit that would fit in the aircraft would cost $500. The satellites would be similar to currently available communications satellites and would cost several hundred million dollars. The ground computer systems would cost a few tens of millions of dollars. In contrast, the FAA's current plans for upgrading air traffic control will cost tens of billions of dollars and will be far less reliable, far less accurate and will take far longer to bring on-line. The FAA's system will be labor intensive, inefficient and, as you well know, subject to crippling strikes. If Geostar had been guiding Korean Air Lines flight 007 it would never have strayed into Soviet airspace. Two hundred and sixty nine lives would have been saved. Geostar would allow full instrument landing capabilities at any airport in the US (or, in an emergency, on any farmer's field). Mid-air collisions would be greatly reduced. A competitor to Geostar is the military's Global Positioning System (GPS). Geostar tranceivers will be far less expensive than GPS units, and Geostar cannot be used surreptitiously by an enemy to guide missiles or bombers. In addition, Geostar will allow transmission of messages to individual aircraft, something GPS cannot do but that is necessary for air traffic control. The Geostar satellites will be much cheaper than the GPS satellites. Geostar is being developed by Geostar, Inc., a start up company organized by Gerard O'Neill. Investors in Geostar include Nobel Prize winner Dr. Luis Alvarez and Dr. Tom Paine, former NASA administrator and president of Northrup Corporation. Geostar has successfully tested a mockup of their system in California, with mountain top stations substituting for orbiting satellites. The United States has an undeniable lead over any other country in the key technologies needed for Geostar (communications satellites, high speed computers and microwave technology). The potential market for Geostar overseas is large -- many billions of dollars. Many jobs would be created and the trade deficit reduced. Ultimately, the market for Geostar could be much larger. Truck companies and railroads could use Geostar units to track trailers and boxcars. Lightweight Geostar tranceivers that one can hold in one's hand will guide ships and cars, police and rescue personnel. Geostar could make personal automated aircraft feasible by allowing automated takeoffs and landings. Bureaucratic inertia and lack of imagination at the FAA are preventing the adoption of Geostar. I urge you to prod the FAA into using Geostar. Not only would this cut the budget deficit over the next decade by tens of billions of dollars, but it would also provide business for the space shuttle and eventually provide satellite repair business for the space station. The Geostar system would provide a clear symbol of American technological prowess, a demonstration to the rest of the world that there are still things that Americans, and only Americans, have the skill, know-how and imagination to do. Information on Geostar can be found in the March 1981 issue of @i(Astronautics and Aeronautics), the July 1982 and September 1983 issues of @i(AOPA Pilot) magazine. ------------------------------ Date: 13 Feb 1984 6:34-PST From: dietz%USC-CSE@USC-ECL.ARPA To: space@MIT-MC.ARPA Subject: Orbital Artillery Watching news accounts of the New Jersey's shelling of Lebanon, it occurs to me that this job could be done from space with mass drivers. A kilogram of mass, falling to earth from infinity, has a kinetic energy of over 62 million joules, about the same as the explosive energy liberated by 15 kilograms of high explosive. The energy from geosynchronous orbit is almost as high. To put this number in perspective, 62 million joules is enough energy to lift 62 metric tons of matter 100 meters, if it were to be converted into potential energy. That 1 kilogram of mass will dig a big crater, assuming it survives the atmosphere. Mass drivers being discussed for lunar mining have a mass flow of about 10 kilogram/second at a velocity of about 2 km/sec, with mass being accelerated in 1 kilogram chunks. Orbital velocity at geosynchronous orbit is about 3 km/sec, so a mass driver with an exhaust velocity of around this much is needed to put mass onto trajectories intersecting earth. Assuming a 10 kg/sec mass flow, the geosynchronous mass driver can deliver the equivalent of 150 kg of high explosive to the earth each second, or .54 kilotons per hour. In contrast, a shell from the New Jersey's 16" guns has a mass of about a ton; around 500 shells were dumped on Lebanon in a 12 hour period. (I'm not sure how many of these shells were 5" shells.) This comparison isn't really fair because a large number of small explosions will do more damage than if the same explosive force is detonated in a smaller number of large explosions; blast damage scales as the 2/3 power of explosion energy. Taking this law at face value, and assuming the New Jersey can fire one 16" shell every 30 seconds, the mass driver has about 18 times the firepower. At 11 km/sec, the ultrahypersonic projectiles will be in the atmosphere for only a few seconds. Some mass loss to ablation is acceptable. The projectiles should be long and thin to minimize drag forces, yet should be designed to fragment when a solid surface is encountered so their energy is deposited near the surface. >From 40,000 km away, accuracy is a problem. Assuming an average velocity of 5 km/sec, the projectiles will reach Earth in under three hours. This time can be reduced at the cost of a larger mass driver and higher power requirements, but remember that projected mass drivers for asteroidal mining have exhaust velocities of ~10 km/sec. Engineers working on lunar mass drivers are confident that lateral velocity errors of only a few meters per hour are achievable, leading to an error of perhaps 10 meters after three hours. Longitudinal velocity errors are harder to correct. An error of 1 meter/second will cause the projectile to arrive about 1 second off the target time; the earth's motion will cause the target to move 450 meters during this second. This problem can probably be solved by arranging for "achromatic" trajectories that focus projectiles of slightly varying velocities. Errors due to atmospheric forces will be neglible if the projectiles enter head-on; maintaining projectile orientation could be a problem (spin? tail fins?). All other errors (deviations from symmetry in earth's geoid, lunar and solar gravity, magnetic fields, light pressure) can be accounted for fairly precisely. Assume that most of the projectiles land in 1 km x 1 km area. During a 24 hour bombardment, some 864,000 projectiles will be launched, or one projectile for every 1 or 2 square meters of target area. Saturation bombing indeed. Mass for projectiles would most likely come from nickel-iron asteroids (for density). Retrieving the asteroid is no problem with the mass driver assumed here. The asteroids would also yield ballast mass to anchor the mass driver in orbit against the reaction produced when the it is fired, and to shield the mass driver against hostile attack. Power requirements are not excessive. Launching 10 kg/sec at 5 km/sec requires 125 megawatts of power (at 100% efficiency). A nuclear source is probably best. The mass driver could defend itself against attack by shooting clouds of sand at oncoming missiles or satellites, or by shooting projectiles at larger targets. Sand injected into earth-intersecting orbits would be a nice touch for the 4th of July. Date: 13 Feb 84 2120 PST From: Rod Brooks Subject: Cancelled flight To: space@MIT-MC AM-Shuttle-July,330 Hitch in Shuttle Cargo Reported HOUSTON (AP) - The Air Force has postponed the launch of a secret military satellite which was to be put into orbit in a July space shuttle flight, a newspaper says. The decision could cause the cancellation of the flight, the Houston Chronicle said in a story in its Tuesday editions. The Chronicle said an Air Force spokesman at the Johnson Space Center, who was not identified, confirmed Monday that the payload has been pulled from the July flight. That spokesman could not say for certain the flight had been canceled. The source said the Air Force and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration were negotiating a new launch date. But NASA officials told the Chronicle they have not been informed of the Air Force action and that as of now the flight is on their schedule. Air Force officials said they could not say, because of security reasons, why the cargo had been removed, the Chronicle said. But it noted that space agency officials said last week the secret mission was in jeopardy because it was to use an Interim Upper Stage rocket to put the satellite into stationary orbit. One of these rockets failed last April and put its $100 million satellite into the wrong orbit, requiring a long and costly rescue effort. ''If you don't have a cargo, you either seek an alternate mission or cancel the flight,'' John McLeaish, head of public affairs at Johnson Space Center, was quoted as saying. Glynn Lunney, program manager of the shuttle system, has not yet been told that the Air Force has canceled its cargo, McLeaish said. Cancellation of the mission will leave astronauts Thomas Mattingly, Loren Shriver, Ellison Onizuka and James Buchli without a flight for the second time. They were to have flown the shuttle on a military mission last fall. That flight was canceled because of the rocket problems. Cancellation of the flight will leave eight missions on the launch scheduled for this year. ap-ny-02-13 2330EDT ------------------------------ Sender: Heiny.Henr@PARC-MAXC.ARPA Date: 15 Feb 84 10:42:18 EST (Wednesday) Subject: Re: Grabbing Lost Satellites In-reply-to: Charles Weems (Thu, 9 Feb 84 22:14 EST) To: weems%umass-cs%UMASS-CS@CSNet-Relay.ARPA From: Chris Heiny Reply-To: Heiny.henr@parc-Maxc.arpa, Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC.ARPA cc: Heiny.Henr@PARC-MAXC.ARPA, Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC.ARPA, DMS%MIT-OZ@MIT-MC.ARPA, REM@MIT-MC.ARPA As I understand it, the satellite/PAM pair looks something like this: --------- | | | | | sat | | | | | --------- ----------- | PAM | ----------- (I'm not sure if this is accurate: the illustrations in the local paper are not very good). Could a satellite grabbing device that looks something like this be constructed: > < = \ / \------------/ part1 | | | | ------------ = ------------ = | | part2 ------------ = | | handle | 0 Part1 has several things for grabbing the sides/edges of the PAM, plus equipment to spin part1 up to match the satellites spin, and then despin both part1 and the satellite. If necessary when winding part1 up, angular momentum can be stored in part2, which would rotate counter to part1 (but leave the handle unrotating). To retrieve a satellite, an astronaut pulls the sgd (satellite grabbing device) from the shuttle to the satellite. After lining up the axes of the satellite and the sgd (this has to be done first, because the spinning parts of the sgd will act as a gyroscope), part1 is spun up to the satellites rotational speed. The astronaut the pushes the sgd into position beneath the pam, the sgd grabs the pam, and rockets (brakes?) in part1 (plus any spin in part2) get used to despin the satellite. The astronaut the uses the handle to tow the satellite back to the shuttle. The question is: would this work (and could it be built?), or should I stay away from the opium in the future? Chris Heiny Xerox Corp, Rochester, NY ARPA: Heiny.Henr@Parc-maxc.arpa USnail: 125 Clooney Dr, Henrietta, N.Y. 14467 ------------------------------ Date: 15 Feb 1984 15:32:52 PST From: METH@USC-ISI Subject: Recovery of the Lost Satellites To: SPACE@MIT-MC cc: METH@USC-ISI FROM AVIATION LEAK, FEBRUARY 13, 1984, P. 23: NASA Studies Recovery of Westar, Palapa Washington - NASA is considering the use of propellant remaining on the Hughes HS 376 Westar 6 and Palapa B-2 communications satellites to circularize the elliptical orbits of the spacecraft for recovery by the space shuttle during the next year. James M. Beggs, agency administrator, suspects material flaws in the Morton Thiokol Star-48 nozzles on the McDonnel Douglas PAM-D upper stages were the cause of nozzle-wall burn-through during deployment into transfer orbit of both spacecraft from the shuttle orbiter Challenger. This could result in oscillations in the vehicle trajectory during the early stages of the solid rocket motor's burn and subsequent ceasing of combustion as the pressure drops forward of the nozzle throat. Beggs said this could account for the low elliptical orbits of both spacecraft at approximately 700 mi apogee and 200 mi perigee. Beggs said the two Star-48 motors were part of a five unit lot, and anomalies in the curing of graphite epoxy composite could have left pockets of volatile gas in the nozzle walls of all five motors. The agency has shceduled time in a test chamber at Arnold Engineering Development Center, Tullahoma, Tenn., to evaluate the other three motors in the lot. Beggs said the problem should be resolved by the next use of the upper stage on the shuttle in June. NASA will design a grapple device to snare the spacecraft and place it in the shuttle orbiter cargo bay, Beggs said. The recovery mission should be scheduled within a year because the orbits will decay to an unacceptable degree for recovery within two years, he said. The value of the hardware would not justify a dedicated mission, so recovery would be in conjunction with launch and deployment of other payloads, according to Beggs. ... _______ This ought to answer some questions that were flying across the net.. (Westar, not Western (good grief!); yes, Virginia, they were solid fueled boosters). -Sheldon Meth ------- ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 16 Feb 84 00:36 EST From: Charles Weems Return-Path: Subject: RE:What are these stars. To: space@mit-mc What you saw was a conjunction of Mars and Saturn (You lucky devil, it's been raining here!). On the night of the 14th to 15th they passed within 0.8 degrees of each other -- this is as close as they will get until March of 1992. This was a great opportunity to be able to compare them in the same field of view with a small telescope. They will remain fairly close together for the rest of the month. An interesting thing to watch for is that they will (from night to night) appear to drift eastward against the background stars (this will be fairly easy to see because they are near the two brightest stars in Libra -- called Zubenelgenubi and Zubeneschamali). Near the end of the month, as they pass quadrature, they will appear to reverse direction against the background stars and head westward. Saturn passes quadrature on the 24th and Mars passes quadrature on the 4th of April. (Simply explained, if you take the line from the Earth to the Sun and draw a line perpendicular to this through the Earth, a planet crossing this line is said to pass quadrature. Only the outer planets can do this. If you draw the geometry on a piece of paper, you can see why they appear to reverse direction. It's a rarity to get to see two planets do this when they are so close together.) chip weems ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 17-Feb-84 1007 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #120 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts at MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 120 Today's Topics: What are these stars/planets? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 16 Feb 84 1218 EST (Thursday) From: Craig.Everhart@CMU-CS-A To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC Subject: What are these stars/planets? CC: rsf@SU-HNV Message-Id: <16Feb84.121833.CE10@CMU-CS-A> The Old Farmer's Almanac (1984 edition) lists a conjunction of Mars and Saturn for 15 Feb, when Mars was less than 1 degree south of Saturn. They both were reflecting similar brightnesses. Since they both rise around midnight now, it's reasonable that you saw them in the southeast sky at 3 am. Craig Everhart ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 18-Feb-84 0303 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #121 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts at MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 121 Today's Topics: Re: projectiles from space plants living on Venus ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 17 Feb 1984 09:23-EST From: Hank.Walker@CMU-CS-VLSI.ARPA Subject: Re: projectiles from space To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC.ARPA Message-Id: <445875793/dmw@CMU-CS-VLSI> I believe this concept is referred to as the "anti-tank spike." You have large numbers of girder-sized spikes in LEO. They have retrorockets, an infra-red guidance system, and a manuevering system. In order to stop a tank attack, you radio for lots of these spikes to deorbit into the right region, and the infra-red seekers guide them to a tank. It would probably look really impressive when they hit. ------------------------------ Date: 17 February 1984 08:15 EST From: Robert Elton Maas Subject: plants living on Venus To: SPACE @ MIT-MC The other day I came up with a neat idea. Let's build plants that can live on Venus, not on the solid surface under the clouds, but on the top of the clouds, with roots that extend into the clouds to suck up sulfur and other nutrients and with solar panels (leaves) that collect solar energy and radiate back microwave and far infrafed, and of course bubbles of hydrogen (which must be actively maintained) for maintaining flotation. We'd program these plants to have electronic genes and to mate and reproduce, and those which can't maintain flotation will sink and die, leaving more room at the top for those which can, and these creatures might survive long after Earth cremates itself in a nuclear war. Maybe someday the plants will consume so much of the atmospheric nutrients that it'll be thinned to where plants can touch ground and maybe even take root the way Earth plants do, being able to see the Sun from the ground and being able to do away with their flotation bulbs. ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 19-Feb-84 0303 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #122 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts at MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 122 Today's Topics: Landing ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 11 Feb 84 4:28:12-PST (Sat) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: harpo!ulysses!gamma!exodus!mhtsa!mh3bs!eagle!allegra!alice!alb @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Landing The Challenger made a picture perfect landing today, 6 seconds early. ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 20-Feb-84 0302 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #123 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts at MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 123 Today's Topics: More thoughts on space artillery Re: plants around Venus cosmic causes for mass extinctions on Earth ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 18 Feb 1984 10:34-PST From: dietz%USC-CSE@USC-ECL.ARPA To: space@MIT-MC.ARPA Cc: Hank.Walker@CMU-CS-VLSI.ARPA Subject: More thoughts on space artillery Reply-To: dietz.usc-cse@RAND-RELAY.ARPA After giving more thought to the space bombardment system, it occurs to me that the system could be made much cheaper by placing the launcher on Earth. Railguns currently can accelerate 2 gram projectiles at 10^7 m/sec^2, reaching orbital velocity (7 km/sec) in 2.5 meters(!). Assuming we can accelerate 1 kilogram projectiles at only 10^6 m/sec^2, the launcher would be 25 meters long -- quite feasible. Assuming a launcher efficiency of 50%, launching 10 kg/sec would require 490 megawatts of power, which could be taken from the power grid or from a dedicated gas turbine. Increasing power consumption to 4.9 gigawatts allows one to launch 100 kg/sec - about 100 times the firepower of the New Jersey. This power is consumed only during full use, of course, so the average power consumption over the life of the launcher could be much less (but see below). The ground based system would also get around the Outer Space Treaty, which bans the placing in space of weapons of mass destruction. Projectiles could be much cheaper than current artillery rounds (which cost on the order of $500 each). They would probably be made of steel, perhaps with an ablative coating. Projectiles would be launched in highly elliptical orbits so they leave/reenter the atmosphere at near vertical angles. The launcher should probably be placed on a high mountain near power lines, perhaps in California near the Pacific Intertie. Assuming the system is feasible, cost should be relatively low -- certainly far less than an equivalent force of battleships or bombers with nonnuclear bombs. The launcher could probably be used to send mass to a "catcher" in orbit when it wasn't being used as a weapon. Used continuously, a 100 kg/sec launcher could lift over three million tons to space every year, at a cost in electricity of perhaps $3 billion/year (at around $.05 per kw-hour). Three million tons is enough to build a small space colony (shielded, space for 10,000 people) or thirty solar power satellites. Probably only bulk materials could be lifted this way, to be used to fabricate useful components in orbit. Delicate or weak materials, gases and people will have to be lifted by rocket or obtained elsewhere. Hank Walker: Guided anti tank spikes would not have to be very large to penetrate armor (a few kilograms, at most). At 7 km/sec the spikes will have some 25-50 times the energy of conventional kinetic energy rounds of equal mass. The problem is guidance, which makes the spikes very expensive. It's not clear how an IR sensor would see through the very hot shock waves around the reentering projectiles anyway. ------------------------------ Date: 18 Feb 1984 12:00-PST From: dietz%USC-CSE@USC-ECL.ARPA To: rem@MIT-MC.ARPA Cc: space@MIT-MC.ARPA Subject: Re: plants around Venus Sagan had this idea years ago. Venus's problem is the almost total lack of hydrogen (and water) in the atmosphere, as well as far too much oxygen and carbon. The clouds on Venus reflect most of the sunlight reaching the planet; removing them might increase the surface temperature. ------------------------------ Date: 20 Feb 84 0111 PST From: Ron Goldman Subject: cosmic causes for mass extinctions on Earth To: space@MIT-MC n027 0940 19 Feb 84 BC-EXTINCT By WALTER SULLIVAN c.1984 N.Y. Times News Service NEW YORK - Periodic passages of the solar system through the dust-laden plane of the Milky Way Galaxy roughly once every 30 million years result in bombardment of the Earth by comets and other objects, causing mass extinctions, according to a hypothesis of two scientists of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. The Sun, Earth and other planets, they say, are currently undergoing such a passage. The galaxy is a flattened system of spiral arms within which are concentrated many stars, as well as clouds of dust and gas from which new stars and planets form. The Sun and its assembly of planets weave back and forth across this galactic plane. According to the best current evidence, according to the space scientists, upward or downward crossings occur every 33 million years, with an uncertainty margin of 3 million years. The authors of the idea are Michael R. Rampino and R.tB. Stothers at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, 112th Street and Broadway in New York. They cite a report by two university of Chicago specialists suggesting that, over 250 million years, mass extinctions of marine species have tended to occur every 30 million years, with deviations of no more than eight million years to either side of that repetition rate. While crossing the galactic plane, according to the hypothesis, the solar system is likely to collide with or pass near clouds of dust and gas whose gravity would alter the orbits of the solar system's comets, causing more of them than normal to fall onto the Earth and other planets. In each crossing at least one explosive impact sufficiently catastrophic to darken the Sun and cause mass extinctions would be probable, they say. Finally, in estimates of the age of the Earth's impact craters, they see a dominant cycle of about 31 million years between bombardments. The peaks in activity coincided with crossings of the galactic plane. The University of Chicago study on extinction cycles was performed by David M. Raup, chairman of the department of geophysical sciences there, and J. John Sepkoski Jr. of that department. Asked last week when the solar system would next cross the galactic plane, Rampino said, ''It's there now.'' However, since the clouds are scattered randomly above and below, as well as within the galactic plane, the probability of a close encounter is spread over a prolonged period. A period of mass extinctions has been recorded for the Miocene, 11 million years ago, and Dr. Rampino suggested the Sun and Earth at that time were already close enough to the plane to be vulnerable. Such random scattering of the clouds, according to the scientists, would also explain why the cycle is not more clear-cut. The Chicago analysis cites an extinction cycle closer to 26 million years than to 30 million years, but with much variability. nyt-02-19-84 1224est *************** ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 23-Feb-84 0304 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #124 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts at MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 124 Today's Topics: Shuttle Laser Disc Re: Shuttle Laser Disc Re: Shuttle Laser Disc STS-11 Mission Scapped Re: STS-11 Mission Scapped How to land on the Moon A lunar chauvinistic statement Billion Dollar Space Programs Re: What are these stars/planets? Re: What are these stars/planets? Private space ventures Launch Loop author replies Re: Grabbing Lost Satellites Space salvage rights? - (nf) Re: Satellite insurance ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 16 Feb 84 14:24:39-PST (Thu) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: ihnp4!inuxc!ralph @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Shuttle Laser Disc I've just discovered a marvelous chunk of visual information for hardcore shuttle fans. It is a laser video disc that covers the flights known as STS-5,6, and 7, and is put out by a company called Video Vision Associates LTD. The disc is in CAV format, and that means that you can do freeze frame, slow motion, fast motion, random access of any frame on the disc, etc. all with the razor sharp clarity provided by the laser disc medium. In addition to footage of launching and landing, they have films from the fixed cargo bay cameras and the hand-held cameras onboard. There are marvelous sequences of the SRB's splashing down, satellite launchings, bay doors opening and closing, main tank sep, EVA, and the crews living and playing in space. Along with the moving pictures, there are some 800 still frames taken by the 35mm and 70mm still cameras on board. Each one is indexed and titled in a booklet that comes with the disc, and you can punch up any one of them, or just flip through them like an album. An address is included so that you can order a slide or print of the original for any still frame that you are really taken with. I haven't seen most of this stuff anywhere else (not available in any store, only through this great TV offer...), and I have to say again - excellent! Rush out in a buying frenzy and latch onto this one: Space Archive Vol. 1 Mission Reports STS-5-6-7 Video Vision Associates Ltd. 7 Waverly Place Madison, NJ 07940 I'm hoping this outfit will stay in business so I can get my hands on their next release. Ralph Keyser AT&T Consumer Products ...!inuxc!ralph ------------------------------ Date: 20 Feb 84 16:58:59-PST (Mon) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: sun!gnu @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: Shuttle Laser Disc It would be appreciated when posting announcements of commercially available neat things, if you'd give the price, or at least the order of magnatude, or the phone number we could call to find out. ------------------------------ Date: 21 Feb 84 13:00:31-PST (Tue) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: ihnp4!inuxc!ralph @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: Shuttle Laser Disc Well, you can't have everything, but you can have this laser disc for $39.95 plus tax. ------------------------------ Date: 14 Feb 84 8:38:25-PST (Tue) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: hplabs!hpda!fortune!dsd!avsdS!avsdT.willett @ Ucb-Vax Subject: STS-11 Mission Scapped STS-11 Has been scapped? Due to the malfunction of rocket engines on the satalites of the STS-10 space mission, the STS-11 mission to place the Top Secret(?) military satalite into orbit has been post- poned until the rocket engine faults can be rectified. ------------------------------ Date: 20 Feb 84 9:02:23-PST (Mon) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: ihnp4!houxm!hogpc!houti!ariel!vax135!cornell!uw-beaver!tektronix!orca!shark!philb @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: STS-11 Mission Scapped My understanding was that STS-11 was canned because of continuing problems with the Inertial Upper Stage (IUS) which is a VERY different booster that the smaller Payload Assist Module (PAM). The top secret bird apparently is large enough to need a IUS instead of a PAM which is used on smaller payloads such as those deplyed on the pervious orbiter missions. Phil Biehl Tektronix, Inc. ------------------------------ Date: 8 Nov 83 13:44:26-PST (Tue) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: hplabs!hpda!fortune!amd70!onyx!dual!zehntel!tektronix!tekcad!vice!keithl @ Ucb-Vax Subject: How to land on the Moon The September 1983 "Acta Astronautica" (Pergamon Press, Elmsford, NY 10523, $30/y for AIAA and AAS members) contains an article by Krafft Ehricke describing the Slide Lander and the Drop Delivery systems for landing vehicles on the Moon. These are systems intended to reduce the amount of waste gasses and debris associated with lunar landings. Ehricke is well known among the space community for his inventive new ideas, and these are no exception... The Slide Lander puts bulldozer-like blades on the bottom of the vehicle, which skids to a stop on a 100 Km long runway on the flat sandy surface of a lunar mare. The vehicle's kinetic energy heats up and scatters the sand; the vehicle slows from 1700 m/s at up to 2.4 gees. Ehricke assumes the blades pick up a protective layer of sand, which keeps them from melting. Surface features like small hills are avoided by jumping over them. The author suggests some good flat spots on the Moon to do this (there aren't many). The Drop Delivery system assumes the vehicle is slowed to a horizontal stop with horizontally firing rockets (the gasses and exhaust will leave the Moon). The vehicle then drops from an altitude of about 10 kilometers into a tower of stacked nets 60 meters high. It punches holes in the nets as it falls, losing energy in the process. I don't know whether these ideas will work, but they're fun to think about. There is a lot more information in the articles, and a juicy quote I'm putting in the next article. Look for "Acta Astronautica" in a good university library. Keith Lofstrom uucp: {ucbvax,decvax,chico,pur-ee,cbosg,ihnss}!teklabs!vice!keithl CSnet: keithl@tek ARPAnet:keithl.tek@rand-relay ------------------------------ Date: 8 Nov 83 13:47:50-PST (Tue) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: hplabs!hpda!fortune!amd70!onyx!dual!zehntel!tektronix!tekcad!vice!keithl @ Ucb-Vax Subject: A lunar chauvinistic statement The September 1983 "Acta Astronautica" (Pergamon Press, Elmsford, NY 10523, $30/y for AIAA and AAS members) contains an article by Krafft Ehricke describing the Slide Lander and the Drop Delivery systems for landing vehicles on the Moon, which I mentioned in a previous article. It also had a quote useful for amusing (or raising the hackles of) a typical orbital space colony freak like myself: "Just as solar energy tunnel vision concluded that the 14-day long lunar night disqualified the Moon as basis of a comprehensive extraterrestrial industrial system, dogmatically refusing to consider the obvious advantages of nuclear power, so does failure to consider progress beyond LM-type landing and ascent lead to an appraisal of the future course of lunar activities that envisions exactly the opposite extreme of the "colony" concept. While the latter began with large numbers of peoples before considering what they should do other than exist, the other concept envisions essentially no people, only robots and self-replicating robots. More likely, however, future astronautics will neither be an existentially anemic orbiting Nirvana nor armchair industrialization. Advancements in cislunar transportation can and will improve lunar access so that an optimally cost-effective human-cybernetic mix can be present during the lunar industrial buildup phase; thereafter, permitting a lunar population to be supported by a strong, viable industrial infrastructure and a commitment to advancing science and technology - outgrowth of the potentially noblest dimension of extraterrestrial advances, the evolution of a polyglobal civilization. This presumes, of course, that such us still at all within the grasp of a humanity being visibly alienated from cosmopolitan perspectives and persistently traumatized into intolerance and hostile retrogressive parochialism." -- Krafft Ehricke, Acta Astronautica, Vol. 10 No. 9, page 644. Well, I thought it was hilarious, but then, I get a giggle from the front page of the newspaper. It's fun to see stuff like this in the middle of a technical paper. From the existentially anemic keyboard of: Keith Lofstrom uucp: {ucbvax,decvax,chico,pur-ee,cbosg,ihnss}!teklabs!vice!keithl CSnet: keithl@tek ARPAnet:keithl.tek@rand-relay ------------------------------ Date: 23 Oct 83 6:45:06-PDT (Sun) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: hplabs!hpda!fortune!amd70!onyx!dual!zehntel!tektronix!tekcad!vice!keithl @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Billion Dollar Space Programs This is a followup to a discussion in net.sf-lovers. I figure it belongs here. In support of Tom Craver, who claimed that a reasonable space effort could be made with ~$10M, it is likely that space launch could be MUCH cheaper if provided by private industry; government may be the worst thing that ever happened to the American space effort. A simple calculation: (1/2) * (M=30000Kg = shuttle payload) * (V=8000m/s = orbital velocity)^2 ~= 1e12 Joules 1 gallon gasoline + oxidizer ~= 1.3e8 Joules ~= $1.30 therefore the cost of the payload kinetic energy from a shuttle launch is about $10K. The rest is inefficiency and waste. (Incremental costs for a shuttle launch are about $200M. Amortized costs are much higher.) Granted it's harder to do orders of magnitude better with present technology, but present technology (read: modified war rockets) isn't the best answer. If some people lack the imagination to think of ways to reduce that $200M number, others don't: there are half a dozen small companies working on that right now. Do they need lavish federal subsidies? Stephen Bennett, head of Arc Technologies in California, recently said before a Senate subcommittee that he could make a profit in space launch, without federal subsidies, tax exemptions, or help of any kind. All he wants is the freedom to do so. Many other firms are also operating without federal funds; others have been stopped by government intervention. It is a pointless exercise to second-guess history; without the massive, weapons-related government investment in rocket technology, the history and technology of space development would have turned out much differently. I suspect that without that investment, private industry would have a much more aggressive attitude towards space, and the potential for development would be far greater than it is now. I will follow the private path; others can follow the tax supported one. If others want to shore up the decrepit structure of NASA, that's their business; just keep it out of my way. Keith Lofstrom uucp: {ucbvax,decvax,chico,pur-ee,cbosg,ihnss}!teklabs!vice!keithl CSnet: keithl@tek ARPAnet:keithl.tek@rand-relay ------------------------------ Date: 21 Feb 84 8:21:01-PST (Tue) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: ihnp4!ihlts!rjnoe @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: What are these stars/planets? >> They are probably Mars and Saturn. Mars is the one closer to the >> horizon. Almost all of the planets are visible in the SE-sky before >> sunrise. Of course the poster meant all the planets visible to the naked eye are in the same general region of the sky at this moment. Mars and Saturn passed within 48 minutes (0.8 degree) of arc about a week ago. Look for a yellowish Jupiter a bit to the East of Mars and Saturn (and a bit lower in the sky), and a bright Venus to the East of Jupiter (that's left for most of you). Venus rises ABOUT 0500 local time, and is visible on a clear morning until 0630 or even 0700. Also in this region are several planets not visible to the naked eye, including Pluto and Uranus (or is it Neptune-- or both?). But I know Mercury isn't in this general area. Perhaps someone with the numbers will post them. If you know where Libra is, you're looking at Mars and Saturn. Roger Noe ihnp4!ihlts!rjnoe ------------------------------ Date: 17 Feb 84 14:28:40-PST (Fri) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: hplabs!sdcrdcf!lwall @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: What are these stars/planets? Indeed, Mars and Saturn are both rising at about midnight, and in fact had a conjunction on Valentine's Day (the significance of which eludes me). The redder of the two would be Mars. Further discussion should probably move to net.astro. Larry Wall {allegra,burdvax,cbosgd,hplabs,ihnp4,sdcsvax}!sdcrdcf!lwall ------------------------------ Date: 12 Feb 84 11:58:32-PST (Sun) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: menlo70!ames-lm!statvax!eugene @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Private space ventures It surprises me to read this Bboard sometimes. Today I see yet-another failed attempt private attempt to get into space. I think they can appreciate how difficult it is to scale technology when physics does not scale as well. It surprises me that I haven't seen more about private space ventures in this Bboard. I wish them all the luck in the world. I choose to work for NASA because it gets past many of the hurtles that private space ventures have to overcome, but I wonder if my talents would not be better served by ESSA or the Japanese space agency. Any discussion of this would be appreciated (as well as private space). Lastly, the infamous shuttle tiles were developed here (I have learned). I know that are lots of reject tiles. I have a friend with lots of money. For $50,000 starting funding, he would be interested in making a `model' reentry vehicle with the use of student labor. We have made informal approaches to the physics Depts at Caltech and UC Santa Barbara. The idea is taken from model airplanes. The idea would be to `crack' the ionization reentry communications problem on a small scale. Current NASA procedures does not allow reentry craft to leave the Shuttle, but this will eventually change. To assist my friend, I gave him a contact at NASA HQ where we obtained the payload contact list (This list is not an open list, sorry). Anyway, getting back to the tiles: remember Paul MacCready and the Gossamer Penguin (solar powered airplane). The solar cells used to power that plane were reject JPL solar cells. Our thinking is to use reject shuttle title material for re-entry craft. This is totally in the realm of capability. The U of Utah is doing a solar sail project entirely on private funding. Interested parties should contact me directly as my friend is not on the net. This isn't enough to take me out of NASA, but it is an interesting idea that I would put some personal time into it. --eugene miya NASA ARC ------------------------------ Date: 22 Nov 83 23:24:02-PST (Tue) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: hplabs!hpda!fortune!amd70!onyx!dual!zehntel!tektronix!tekcad!vice!keithl @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Launch Loop author replies I wrote the Analog article under discussion; I thought I'd sit back and watch people argue for a while. It's been fun watching; I think I'll jump into the coriolis whirlwind ( :-) ). First, I must have missed the reasons for moving the Launch Loop to the northern temperate zone; I know it puts you closer to Earthside business, but it has problems: 1) More plane changes are required to GEO, lunar destinations. 2) Militarily, the Loop is more threatening and an easier target. 3) Off-equator weather is NASTY. 4) Less over-ocean area, more populated areas in launch path. There are more problems, but you get the idea. Coriolis "forces" are not a problem, directly. The path followed by ribbon and track is more-or-less a ballistic one; the ground track is CURVED the same way the ground track of an inclined satellite orbit is. Sure, lots of side forces would be required to make a Loop follow a latitude line, but there is no reason to do so. Another way to think about it is to imagine an ~8000 m/s (orbital velocity) gun at West station, and a target at East station. With proper aiming, and the right velocity, you can hit the target at East station, wherever that is, with no further forces applied to the projectile. The ribbon path is "aimed" in a similar manner. Note that the return track must be lighter than the forward track, the ballistic effects are similar to a projectile velocity change. The real problem is that the retrograde "return" ribbon will have a different curvature than the prograde "forward" ribbon. The two tracks will form a complex lens shape: ^^^ to pole ^^^ forward .................... - - - - latitude line ..... ..... ... reverse ... greatly exaggerated in .. ---------------- .. horizontal direction . ------ ------ . . ---- ---- . . --- --- . West Station East Station The return track is used in the Loop as a stable measurement platform, to gauge the amount of correction force that must be applied before the forward ribbon reaches East station. If the tracks are further apart, the measurements become more difficult. If the Loop is at the North Pole, the spacing between the tracks is approximately 5 kilometers in the middle; the measurement interferometers will have to track well. Forcing the tracks into the same path does require a significant force; the mechanical coupling implied by that force can lead to gross system instability (perturbations do not propagate properly to the stations). All in all, I think I'll stick to the equator. Further information on the Launch Loop is in the December 1983 Analog, on sale near you, with a supplemental article available from Launch Loop, P.O. Box 1538, Portland OR 97207 (by the way, if you send netmail, please include a complete return address to a few major USENET nodes; the header doesn't often work). Keith Lofstrom uucp: {ucbvax,decvax,chico,pur-ee,cbosg,ihnss}!teklabs!vice!keithl CSnet: keithl@tek ARPAnet:keithl.tek@rand-relay ------------------------------ Date: 13 Feb 84 1:17:52-PST (Mon) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: ihnp4!houxm!hogpc!houti!ariel!vax135!cornell!uw-beaver!tektronix!ogcvax!sequent!richard @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: Grabbing Lost Satellites In-Reply-To: Article <16589@sri-arpa.UUCP> The groups that lost Westar and the Indo sattelite can't just "claim" the insurance money. If you had a minor fender-bender and decided to scrap the car, would you're insurance pay up? As I understand it, insurance for each sattelite was spread over several underwriters, Lloyd's of London being the central agency. If the insurers determine that the sattelites can be salvaged for less than the replacement cost, they will only pay for the salvage effort. If, after the attempt, it has failed, they then have to pay replacement. I'm hoping that Lloyds and whoever decide to get NASA to salvage the things - if they can, it'll be a great way of turning bad luck into a selling point. The insurers might want to see how NASA does with Solar Max before they decide. But if the sattelites can be recovered, it would probably be worth it to bring 'em down and send 'em back up, since replacement is over $100 Meg, and would have to include another launch anyway. Good Luck, NASA! from the confused and bleeding fingertips of ...!sequent!richard ------------------------------ Date: 16 Feb 84 4:29:37-PST (Thu) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: ihnp4!stolaf!umn-cs!minn-ua!sew @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Space salvage rights? - (nf) When do the various failed satellites become candidates for salvage by whoever can grab them? ------------------------------ Date: 22 Feb 1984 2206-PST Subject: Re: Satellite insurance From: Ian H. Merritt To: HUMAN-NETS@RUTGERS, SPACE@MIT-MC Ouch! <>IHM<> ------- ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 24-Feb-84 0302 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #125 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts at MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 125 Today's Topics: How to land on the Moon A lunar chauvinistic statement ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 24 February 1984 05:27-EST From: Robert Elton Maas Subject: How to land on the Moon To: hplabs!hpda!fortune!amd70!onyx!dual!zehntel!tektronix!tekcad!vice!keithl @ UCB-VAX cc: SPACE @ MIT-MC Hmmm, so you use a bunch of stacked nets to break the fall of the incoming payload. The nets of course are damaged by having the payload break through them, and you're just getting started so you don't have a way to manufacture or repair nets on the moon. So guess what's in the payload? (Answer, replacment nets!) Now the question is, are more nets supplied in the payload than would be needed to break the fall, thus allowing breakeven with margin for error? ------------------------------ Date: 24 February 1984 05:33-EST From: Robert Elton Maas Subject: A lunar chauvinistic statement To: hplabs!hpda!fortune!amd70!onyx!dual!zehntel!tektronix!tekcad!vice!keithl @ UCB-VAX cc: SPACE @ MIT-MC I agree with that fellow, that a hybrid of humans and robots will be optimal for many tasks including manufacturing in space and on the Moon. I still think the following is worth consideration: on surface of moon robots only, in orbit around moon communications relay satellites and humans working remote-controllers for the on-moon robots. This circumvents both the 2.5-second turnaround delay for Earth-based telepresence and the great cost of supporting humans on the lunar surface. For tasks where the 2.5-second delay doesn't prevent effective work, Earth-based telepresence could be used. ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 25-Feb-84 0303 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #126 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts at MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 126 Today's Topics: Searching for Planets of Other Stars Launch Loop Shuttle laserdisc sequel ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 24 Feb 1984 11:09:04 PST From: METH@USC-ISI Subject: Searching for Planets of Other Stars To: SPACE@MIT-MC cc: METH@USC-ISI A while age I sent a message regarding the Space Telescope's ability to detect planets around stars. Here's an update: From the 1983 Planetary Detection Workshop The Space Telescope (ST) will be capable of astrometrically searching approximately 10 nearby stars for planetary companions at an accuracy between 0.2 milliarc seconds and 0.6 milliarc seconds, which is the accuracy needed for discovery of Saturn or Jupiter mass planets (although many years of observations will be necessary). For ground based systems the theoretical limit due to atmospheric turbulence is thought to be 0.1 milliarc seconds, and current capability is about 3.0 milliarc seconds. With respect to direct imaging detection, it is only under the most optimistic assumptions that ST would make a discovery. The bottom line is that ST may indeed detect planets around nearby stars, but a comprehensive search for other planetary systems (necessary to truly understand the origin of our solar system) is not possible with ST. The above is quoted from a letter from Scott M. Rathjen, Planetary Detection Study Manager, to Hans Mark, Deputy Administrator of NASA. -Sheldon Meth ------- ------------------------------ Date: 24 Feb 1984 14:44-PST From: dietz%USC-CSE@USC-ECL.ARPA To: space@MIT-MC.ARPA Subject: Launch Loop Reply-To: dietz%usc-cse@RAND-RELAY.ARPA The Lofstrom Launch Loop looks like it will be much easier to build on the moon. There's no atmosphere to worry about, so the loop can be at ground level (and the "track" can be ground supported). Lunar escape velocity is only ~2.4 km/sec (vs. ~11.2 km/sec for earth). The mass of the loop itself, the energy used and the mass of the magnets scale as the square of the loop speed, so a lunar loop will cost perhaps 5% as much as a terrestrial loop (ignoring the cost of transporting the loop to the moon). Energy stored in the loop scales as the fourth power of the loop speed, so a lunar loop is much easier to start up (vacuum helps here, too). The lunar loop is about 200 km in circumference (bent into a 100 km hairpin), with 1.2 km diameter "racetracks" on the ends to recirculate the loop. Assuming it can launch a 5 metric ton payload once every 5 minutes, the mass flow rate is 16.6 kg/sec, better than a mass driver. Unlike a mass driver, the system does not require a "mass catcher" at the L2 point, since the payload can be equiped with a guidance system. Payload carriers would have to be reused, so a lunar landing system is needed. The payload carriers are equiped with underside magnets to engage the launch loop and can be landed electromagnetically on an aluminum runway. The launch loop just described accelerates payloads at 3 gees; higher accelerations would allow proportionally shorter loops. The loop can handle people and manufactured goods, unlike a mass driver. Ultimately, a lunar equatorial loop (length 11,000 km) could be used to carry power from the lunar dayside to nightside. Some mountains would have to be moved, but that could be done with nuclear charges or with masses tossed on suborbital trajectories from a launch loop, or from space. ------------------------------ Date: 22 Feb 84 8:28:05-PST (Wed) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: hplabs!sdcrdcf!trwrb!trwspp!urban @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Shuttle laserdisc sequel Video Vision, the people who produce the "Space Shuttle Mission Reports" laserdisc, also sell an APPLE/laserdisk-player interface. Their recent mailer also says: `This March, we will release the second volume of our SPACE ARCHIVE series, "Apollo 17: Mission to Taurus Littrow." This new CAV laserdisc will chronicle the achievements of the last manned mission to the moon, and will include an image directory and a map of the lunar landing site of the Apollo 17.' As I think I've mentioned before, if you really want to sell your friends on what a nifty item your laserdisc player is, just show them the Shuttle disc. Mike ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 28-Feb-84 0302 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #127 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts at MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 127 Today's Topics: 41-C Slightly Delayed ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 23 Feb 84 20:50:08-PST (Thu) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: harpo!eagle!allegra!alice!alb @ Ucb-Vax Subject: 41-C Slightly Delayed NASA today announced that 41-C, originally scheduled to launch on 4 April, will instead launch on 6 April. The later launch date is to provide better conditions for the Solar Max rendezvous. ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 29-Feb-84 0303 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #128 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts at MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 128 Today's Topics: PAM firing pix via RMS camera O'Neill's New Book ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 27 Feb 84 7:57:12-PST (Mon) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: hplabs!zehntel!dual!decwrl!lipman @ Ucb-Vax Subject: PAM firing pix via RMS camera From: dvinci::fisher (Burns Fisher, MRO3-1/E13, 231-4108) I have heard in several places that during the last shuttle flight, the one of the remote manipulator system cameras was pointed at Palapa when its PAM engine fired. (The firing cannot be seen directly because NASA insists on turning the shuttle belly toward the PAM to avoid window abrasion.) What I have NOT seen nor heard anywhere is what was seen by this camera? Has any one seen pictures or descriptions? Thanks, Burns UUCP: ... decvax!decwrl!rhea!dvinci!fisher or ...allegra!decwrl!rhea!dvinci!fisher or ... ucbvax!decwrl!rhea!dvinci!fisher ARPA: decwrl!rhea!dvinci!fisher@Berkeley or decwrl!rhea!dvinci!fisher@SU-Shasta ------------------------------ Date: 28 Feb 1984 9:37-PST From: dietz%USC-CSE@USC-ECL.ARPA To: space@MIT-MC.ARPA Subject: O'Neill's New Book Reply-To: dietz%usc-cse@RAND-RELAY.ARPA Gerard O'Neill's new book, "The Technology Edge: Opportunities for America in World Competition", is now available. O'Neill discusses America's problems in competing with the Japanese, and suggests six high technology areas that could lead to hundred billion dollar industries by the end of the century: microengineering (O'Neill's term for microelectronics), robotics, genetic engineering (O'Neill thinks this one won't grow too large), magnetic flight, general aviation (as opposed to airliners) and space industries (lunar resources for powersats). O'Neill also covers what America can do best (venture capitalism is uniquely American) and what US companies do poorly (managing production in relatively mature industries). The latter occurs for a number of reasons, among them being a shortage of engineers. These viewpoints are easy to understand: O'Neill himself has started a high-tech company with venture capital (Geostar), and the biggest stumbling block to his High Frontier/SSI program is the huge amount of engineering talent it will require (assuming powersats are competitive with other energy sources). ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 01-Mar-84 0303 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #129 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts at MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 129 Today's Topics: Pix of Satellite Burn comet mission Comet mission planned Re: PAM firing pix via RMS camera ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 29 Feb 1984 9:23:04 EST (Wednesday) From: walt lazear Subject: Pix of Satellite Burn To: space at mit-mc During a talk at our company by astronaut Col Gregory, he presented TV and 16mm movies of the last shuttle flight. Among the shots was the sequence of the second satellite PAM firing. The details were lost in the poor resolution of the TV camera, but a pulsing flicker of the rocket blast was evident, as was the premature shutdown of the rocket. Col Gregory had no specific analysis of the incident, but did mention that NASA's contract with clients is to successfully get the payload off the shuttle, period. The guidance they work under is to deploy the payload, even if there are problems, so the client does not have to cancel the contract and pay for another launch after the problems are fixed. If deployed, the malfunctioning payload is then subject to insurance coverage and negotiation with the insuror. The 16mm film of the MMU tests was spectacular, much better quality than the TV picture. There also was a camera on the MMU (upper right), but we didn't get to see any of those shots. We also got to see out the cockpit windows during re-entry and landing. For us pilot types, the view of the Kennedy runway while on final looked really strange, due to the altitude and high drop rate the shuttle experiences. The window during re-entry appeared as continuous flames, as the nose heated up. Walt Lazear ------------------------------ Date: 29 Feb 84 1053 PST From: Ron Goldman Subject: comet mission To: space@MIT-MC n029 1006 29 Feb 84 BC-SCIENCE-WATCH (UNDATED) (ScienceTimes) c. 1984 N.Y. Times News Service A team of 20 American and European astronomers has chosen a bright, short-period comet named Kopff as target for a mission to intercept the comet, fly around it at a range of six miles and then sail along with it at a greater distance as it approaches the sun. The spacecraft, a projected design of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory known as the Mariner Mark II, would be launched in 1990 to meet the comet four years later. It would be the third comet to become target of intercept missions but the first to be joined in its orbit by the probe. The International Cometary Explorer of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration has been aimed to fly past the comet Giacobini-Zinner next year. In 1986 European, Japanese and Soviet spacecraft are scheduled to rendezvous with Halleys Comet. But these are ''fly-by'' missions in which the spacecraft have only one look at their target. Comet Kopff was chosen by a committee convened for that purpose by NASA at the California Institute of Technology. According to the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which is operated by Cal Tech, the spacecraft is expected to remain with the comet for several years, observing its response to the effects of sunlight and other forms of solar radiation as it approaches and loops around the sun. Unlike most comets, whose orbits around the sun are measured in decades, centuries or millenia, this one circles the sun every 6.5 years. The rendezvous would be performed two years before the comet makes its closest approach to the sun. After making observations while orbiting a few miles from the comet the craft would be commanded to move to a greater distance as the comet, under the influence of increasingly intense solar heat and radiation, develops a cloudy envelope, or coma, and a tail. Such is the timing of the mission that it would allow the spacecraft to take ''close looks'' at two asteroids, Namaqua and Lucia, while en route to the rendezvous. The Mariner Mark II is envisioned as a ''bargain basement'' spacecraft, using electronics and other components from existing (and more elaborate) models, such as the Vikings that went to Mars and probes to the other planets - Voyagers, Galileo and the Venus Radar Mapper. Other targets for the Mark II design could include the Saturnian moon Titan, the outer planet Uranus and the asteroids that orbit the sun in a zone between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. ------------------------------ Date: 29 Feb 84 1821 PST From: Ross Finlayson Subject: Comet mission planned To: space@MIT-MC n029 1006 29 Feb 84 BC-SCIENCE-WATCH (UNDATED) (ScienceTimes) c. 1984 N.Y. Times News Service A team of 20 American and European astronomers has chosen a bright, short-period comet named Kopff as target for a mission to intercept the comet, fly around it at a range of six miles and then sail along with it at a greater distance as it approaches the sun. The spacecraft, a projected design of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory known as the Mariner Mark II, would be launched in 1990 to meet the comet four years later. It would be the third comet to become target of intercept missions but the first to be joined in its orbit by the probe. The International Cometary Explorer of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration has been aimed to fly past the comet Giacobini-Zinner next year. In 1986 European, Japanese and Soviet spacecraft are scheduled to rendezvous with Halleys Comet. But these are ''fly-by'' missions in which the spacecraft have only one look at their target. Comet Kopff was chosen by a committee convened for that purpose by NASA at the California Institute of Technology. According to the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which is operated by Cal Tech, the spacecraft is expected to remain with the comet for several years, observing its response to the effects of sunlight and other forms of solar radiation as it approaches and loops around the sun. Unlike most comets, whose orbits around the sun are measured in decades, centuries or millenia, this one circles the sun every 6.5 years. The rendezvous would be performed two years before the comet makes its closest approach to the sun. After making observations while orbiting a few miles from the comet the craft would be commanded to move to a greater distance as the comet, under the influence of increasingly intense solar heat and radiation, develops a cloudy envelope, or coma, and a tail. Such is the timing of the mission that it would allow the spacecraft to take ''close looks'' at two asteroids, Namaqua and Lucia, while en route to the rendezvous. The Mariner Mark II is envisioned as a ''bargain basement'' spacecraft, using electronics and other components from existing (and more elaborate) models, such as the Vikings that went to Mars and probes to the other planets - Voyagers, Galileo and the Venus Radar Mapper. Other targets for the Mark II design could include the Saturnian moon Titan, the outer planet Uranus and the asteroids that orbit the sun in a zone between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. ------------------------------ Date: 27 Feb 84 16:36:39-PST (Mon) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: decvax!genrad!grkermit!masscomp!clyde!burl!ulysses!allegra!alice!alb @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: PAM firing pix via RMS camera In-Reply-To: Article <5861@decwrl.UUCP> The pictures were shown on all the network news programs the night of the firing (surprisingly, I did not see them on CNN!) It was not as spectacular as the event really is. Since, the camera was directed up at the PAM, no rocket plume (the spectacular part) was seen. What you could see was a flash followed by a bright ring of material which quickly descended and widened as the satellite moved away. The satellite/PAM could only be seen for about 10 to 15 seconds, further leading officials to believe that the motors shut down early. ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 03-Mar-84 0302 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #130 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts at MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 130 Today's Topics: O'Neill's book -- how to get Water Rocket Report ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 2 Mar 1984 8:10-PST From: dietz%USC-CSE@USC-ECL.ARPA To: Howard.Gayle@CMU-CS-G.ARPA Cc: space@MIT-MC.ARPA Subject: O'Neill's book -- how to get Title: "The Technology Edge" Subtitle: "Opportunities for America in World Competition" Author: Gerard K. O'Neill Publisher: Simon and Schuster Publishers Address: Simon and Schuster Building, Rockefeller Center, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, NY, NY 10020 Price: $16.95 (hardcover) Pages: 299 pp. ISBN: ISBN 0-671-44766-1 Copyright 1983, available March 1984 (now). I bought my copy at B. Dalton in Canoga Park, CA. ------------------------------ Date: 24 Feb 84 16:11:07 PST (Fri) To: ham-radio@Sri-Unix.ARPA Cc: space@MIT-MC From: hplabs!hpda!fortune!dsd!dna@Ucb-Vax.ARPA Subject: Water Rocket Report Posted: Wed Feb 8, 1984 7:15 AM GMT Msg: NGIE-1712-8217 From: JKING USING WATER AS A PRIMARY METHOD OF PROPULSION FOR SPACERAFT MODIFYING STANDARD STS ORBITS Jan A. King W3GEY V.P. Engineering The Radio Amateur Satellite Corporation The Space Shuttle has modified the method by which space-bound payloads enter orbit for the forseeable future. The STS offers the promise of lower payload cost and the ability to carry large payloads into orbit to mention but a few of its primary objectives. For very low cost payloads such as those pioneered by the radio amateur community (the OSCAR series), the Space Shuttle poses, however, a number of severe engineering obstacles which have become major stumbling blocks to the exploitation of this valuable resource. Not unlike most free flying satellites, the communications satellites launched by radio amateurs and used in the Amateur Satellite Service are intended to meet long life objectives. In addition, to meet mission objectives for the communications service to be provided either a geostationary transfer orbit or a sun synchronous polar orbit must be attained by the spacecraft. Unfortunately, neither of these objectives can be met by the standard provisions of a Space Shuttle mission. STS orbits, typically 296 km in altitude and inclined from 25 to 57 degrees are unstable. A small spacecraft, with a low surface area to mass ratio, will decay from such an orbit in a matter of months. This class of orbits, with a few exceptions, is also unsuitable for communications experiments of interest to the Amateur Satellite Service. It is therefor a necessary requirement for Amateur Satellites and other free flying spacecraft seeking stable orbits to carry a propulsive capability if launched by the Space Shuttle. Having accepted the burden of a propulsive system as an added spacecraft complexity, yet another problem becomes apparent. Classical propulsion systems employed by satellites are characterized as hazardous devices. Due to the manned presence on board Shuttle safety considerations are necessarily more stringent when using this method of launching a spacecraft. The added complexities and paperwork resulting from the inclusion of hazardous devices on board Shuttle launched satellites conflicts with the low cost nature of these programs and may make such payloads totally impractical or viable only if launched by alternative methods. This problem is exascerbated by the fact that most orbit alternatives can be reached from Shuttle orbits only by multiple delta-V maneuvers. This requires multiple solid rocket engines or a restartable engine on board the satellite, further multiplying the safety hazard problem. A solution is sought to the "Shuttle Dilema." The Shuttle Dilemma may be defined as follows: 1/ A Shuttle payload is always two burns away from the desired orbital elements when separated from the cargo bay. 2/ The cost of NASA safety approval for a propulsive device used aboard Shuttle by a low cost user is approximately a factor of three higher than the entire cost of the payload itself. 3/ As a rule of thumb, the mass of the paperwork necessary for NASA approval of a hazardous device for a Shuttle flight is greater than or equal to the mass of the payload. While the above may seem humorous, these statements are all too true and must be dealt with squarely by would-be Shuttle low cost payload designers. A propulsion system that would solve the Shuttle Dilema could be expected to have the following characteristics: 1/ The propellant used should not be a chemical, pressue or explosive hazard as defined by NASA or the USAF (ref. AFETRM-127- 1). 2/ The loading of propellant into the spacecraft should not constitute a hazardous activity. No special safety equipment should be required. 3/ No portion of the propulsion system should contain hazardous devices of any kind. Certain exceptions to this rule might be taken to include category B electro-explosive devices such as pyrotechnically operated valves. 4/ No portion of the propulsion system should be pressurized or become pressurized even remotely while the satellite is on the ground, during powered flight or during astronaut activities in orbit, including those conducted to separate the satellite from the Shuttle. 5/ No portion of the propulsion system should be susceptable to damage due to the environment of the Cargo Bay during powered flight or in orbit prior to or during separation of the satellite. The Radio Amateur Satellite Corporation (AMSAT), having had practical experience with both liquid and solid propulsion systems on board low cost satellites believes that the above requirements will prove to be virtually mandatory for low cost payloads flown by the Space Transportation System. Two methods have been considered for some time by AMSAT that appear to meet the above five conditions and produce satisfactory performance for space applications. Both involve using water as a fuel and both have been considered by other groups from time to time as methods of space propulsion. PROPULSION VIA WATER ELECTROLYSIS: The propulsion of a space vehicle via hydrogen/oxygen fuel produced from the electrolysis of water is far from a novel idea. Hughes Aircraft Company, Space Systems Division documented the results of an internal research and development IR&D project which developed a working model of a water electrolysis rocket during the first half of 1964 (1,2,3,4). Using this technique a single pressure vessle acts as storage for the water and electolyte, as an electrolysis chamber and finally as a pressure bottle for the combined electolyzed gases. The premixed gas may be fed via a single line into the injection chamber of a small rocket engine or thruster. In their final report on this technology Hughes stated, "The Water Electrolysis Rocket has been explored in sufficient depth to verify the feasibility of the concept. Furthermore, it has been determined that this system offers significant advantages over other presently available reaction control systems. Among these advantages are: 1/ Higher specific impulse 2/ Lower system weight 3/ Lower power requirements 4/ Extended life in space 5/ Improved system reliablity 6/ System simplicity " It is interesting to note that at the time of the writing Hughes did not cosider the safety advantages of the system which are of prime interest to AMSAT. The specific impulse of a small electrolysis motor of the type required for a low cost satellite mission is between 330 and 360 sec. This is considerably better than either an equivalent solid or bipropellant liquid motor system (270 and 305 sec. respectively). Preliminary investigations by AMSAT suggest that the power required to electolyze one kilogram of water is approximately 5,000 WH. This may be related to delta-V for a specific satellite case as shown in Table 1. A minimum system schematic is shown in Figure 1. It is not known why Hughes did not continue to develope this technology to the point of commercial introduction. Clearly, however, monopropellant hydrazine systems replace other methods for reaction control starting about the same time as the Hughes research on water electrolysis motors. Since this work was done there have been dramatic improvements in both electrolysis electrode and thruster technologies. AMSAT has also conducted preliminary studies on an advanced method of drying the hydrogen and oxygen gas which should lead to improved thruster performance. This was one problem reported by the Hughes research team. PROPULSION BY STEAM EXPULSION: A second method of exploiting water as a safe propellant is by means of a small steam engine integral to the thruster in a water fed propulsion system. Water is allowed to superheat in a small chamber adjacent to an expansion nozzle. Thrust is produced by the acceleration of water molecules as they exit the nozzle. The specific impulse of this technique is far poorer than the electrolysis method (107 sec.), however, the system complexity is very low indeed and the energy required to liberate a kilogram of water into steam is only 750 WH, considerably less than with electrolysis. The specific impulse for a motor of this type can be shown to be governed by the equation: | 2 C K Tb (1 - **C-1/C)| Isp = SQRT | ________ | | (C-1)n m | where: C = Heat capacity of propellant (water = 1.3) K = Boltzman Constant = 1.38E-23 J/K Tb = Gas Temperature = (approx.) 400K n = molecular weight of propellant (water = 18) m = mass of a hydorgen atom = 1.66E-27 Kg Pexit = Nozzle exit plane pressure (assumed = 0.01 Bar) Pchamb. = Thruster chamber pressure (assumed = 5.0 Bar) As can be seen, the specific impulse depends inversely on the molecular weight of the fuel used, taken to the 1/2 power. This favors the use of low molecular weight fuels. As can be seen water is nearly optimum for an engine of this type particularly when the other physical properties of this fluid are taken into consideration in a practical system. While, on balance, a system using steam as a propulsion technique is far from optimum with respect to Isp it is simple enough to be included on even GAS CAN mission and can solve a reasonable number of propulsion problems for small spacecraft. Figure 1 reviews the performance of this system for a variety of missions of interest to AMSAT and gives a comparison to the electrolysis method. ORBIT CORRECTION TECHNIQUE USING WATER PROPUSLION METHODS: A salient characteristic of both propulsion techniques reviewed is that they take electrical energy from the solar arrays of the spacecraft and convery it into potential energy (either in the form of stored gas to be burned or in the form of stored electrical energy). Thrust is best produced in a burst mode rather than with a continuous firing. This is a typical operating mode for a reaction control system (RCS) but is somewhat unusual for an orbit transfer maneuver. In effect, time is traded against the burn duration (power production rate of the satellite) so that a reasonable compromise for the total duration of the propulsion phase of the mission is reached. An important consideration for such a mode of operation is that the total delta-V achieved per day during the maneuver must be greater than the deceleration per day due to drag in the Shuttle base orbit. The orbit transfer strategy for circular orbits with a spinning spacecraft is shown in Figure 2. Two small thrusters at either end of the satellite are employed. Firings always occur at the line of apsidies. Alternate thrusters are used so that a first firing occurs at perigee thus raising apogee and a subsequent firing occurs at apogee now raising perigee. Mini- Hohman transfer maneuvers are repeated until the desired circular altitude is reached. Eliptical orbits can be achieved with a single thruster fired at consecutive perigees thus continuously raising apogee. Inclination changes with this technique are also possible and are most efficiently applied when apogee also coincides with the ascending node of the orbit. SUMMARY: The techniques reviewed have been considered in the past by space research projects and by commercial spacecraft manufacturers. While these propulsion technologies have never been reduced to commercial practice, sufficient study has been done to verify their applicability to space missions. If the STS is going to fulfill its mission as a launcher for ALL space interests then some acceptable methods of propulsion must be found for smaller payloads. These methods must take into consideration the low cost nature of such projects and the very stringent safety constraints imposed by NASA on all STS users. In view of the above AMSAT believes that water propulsion technologies should be revisited because they have the potential of solving the "Shuttle Dilema" for a class of users that can bring significant benefit to the space program as a whole. REFERENCES: 1. Newman, Daniel D., Study of the Water Electrolysis Propulsion System- Final Report, Engineering Record No. 151, Hughes Aircraft Co., S.S.D., Propulsion and Power Systems Laboratory, 5 June 1964. 2. Water Electrolysis Rocket, Hughes Aircraft Company Proposal, 63H-7438/9419 (Dec. 1963). 3. Electrochemical Service Unit, Hughes Aircraft Company Proposal, 64H-2115/A3951-001 (April 1964). 4. Water Electrolysis Rocket, Hughes Aircraft Company Proposal, 64H-2510/A4682-001 (May 1964). . ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 05-Mar-84 0302 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #131 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts at MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 131 Today's Topics: Re: Orbital Artillery Discovery Maiden Flight Delayed ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 1 Mar 84 9:18:37-PST (Thu) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: hplabs!hao!seismo!rlgvax!cvl!umcp-cs!judd @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: Orbital Artillery In-Reply-To: Article <16648@sri-arpa.UUCP> <164@ames-lm.UUCP> ------------------------------ Date: 1 Mar 84 15:24:40-PST (Thu) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: harpo!ulysses!allegra!alice!alb @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Discovery Maiden Flight Delayed The maiden flight of the Discovery, originally set for 4 June, has been delayed until at least 19 June. THe postponement is necessary because several com- ponents, including an orbital maneuvering pod, a main engine, and all three APU's, have had to be taken from the Discovery for use in the Challenger. ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 06-Mar-84 0302 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #132 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts at MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 132 Today's Topics: Details of upcoming Solar Max repair mission Water Rocket Report ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 05 Mar 84 1335 PST From: Ross Finlayson Subject: Details of upcoming Solar Max repair mission To: space@MIT-MC BC-SPACE-FIX 2takes By PATRICK YOUNG Newhouse News Service WASHINGTON - Astronaut Bruce McCandless called it ''a nice little flying machine'' when he tested the free-flying manned maneuvering unit in space in early February. Astronaut George D. Nelson now is preparing to put the MMU to its first real test. On the next space shuttle mission, set for launch April 4, Nelson is to fly the MMU to the crippled Solar Maximum Mission satellite, then try to dock with the craft and stop its slow spin. If he succeeds, Solar Max will be loaded aboard the shuttle for repair and later reorbited. That's no mean feat, and no small step for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration as it seeks to prove another of the shuttle's much-touted capabilities and to win congressional approval for the permanent manned space station President Reagan proposed in January. ''This mission is a milestone for the concept of on-orbit service and maintenance,'' says Donald N. Turner, NASA's project manager for Solar Max repair. NASA has long argued it would be cheaper to service satellites in space than to simply abandon them if something goes wrong. Solar Max cost about $80 million to build, but replacing it would cost $200 million or more. And the service-repair concept is vital to building the space station and other large orbiting structures, as well as some envisioned space-industrialization schemes. ''The thing now is to show people can actually do nuts-and-bolts things in space,'' says executive director Mark R. Chartrand of the National Space Institute, a nonprofit space advocacy group. ''It's a precursor to building a space station, where someone is going to have to assemble and bolt things together.'' Some NASA officials are so confident the mission will succeed that they are talking about going after the two communications satellites launched by the last shuttle. These went into low orbits because their booster rockets failed. The two craft were not built for recovery in space, but engineers think it could be done - if the satellites' owners want to pay for it. Solar Max is the first satellite designed for on-orbit repair. It was launched four years ago to explore the sun's magnetic fields, sunspots, solar flares and energy output. But 10 months later, Solar Max lost its fine pointing control, rendering four of its seven instruments useless. Since then, one of these four has died and a second has developed electronics trouble. Exhaust leaks are interferring with a third instrument. If the repair mission works, Solar Max's precision aiming and six of its instruments will be restored to perfect order. Full repairs will require two days. But to even reach Solar Max will require the steepest, most precise shuttle launch yet. The satellite is orbiting 309 miles above earth, far higher than the shuttle has flown. Repairs will begin on the flight's third day. Mission commander Robert Crippen is to guide the shuttle to within 300 feet of Solar Max and Nelson will fly over to it without a lifeline. Nelson will use the MMU to get his body rotating in synchronization with the satellite, which turns around once every six minutes. This done, he will move in and lock onto the craft with a device mounted in front of the MMU. ''Then he uses the jets on his backpack to stop the spacecraft's rotation and stabilize it,'' says F. J. Logan, deputy manager of satellite servicing at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. Once Solar Max stops spinning, Crippen will ease the shuttle to within 30 or 40 feet. Astronaut Terry J. Hart, working inside the shuttle cabin, will swing the shuttle's 50-foot manipulator arm over to the satellite, lock onto it and load it into the shuttle's cargo bay. Nelson then is to take off the MMU and place himself at the base of thecrad e-like device holding Sola Max. Astronaut James D. van Hoften, locked in a foot restraint, will ride the manipulator arm like a cherry picker as the two replace the satellite's attitude system, which controls the precision aiming of its instruments. Van Hoften will use a special tool to loosen the two bolts holding the four-foot square, 18-inch-thick unit in place. Nelson will hand him the replacement to bolt on. Although it weighs 450 pounds on earth, the control-system module is essentially weightless in space. ''This is the prime (repair) mission, and if we went to only one EVA (space walk), that is the one we'd do,'' Logan says. ''This will give us five instruments.'' Next, the astronauts are to do a simple fix. They are to clip a baffle around an exhaust port to prevent fumes from leaking back into Solar Max and interferring with the soft X-ray polychromator. Finally, before quitting for the day, the astronauts will begin their most complex repair - replacing the failed electronics for the coronagraph polarimeter, which records visible ejections from the sun. The CP's electronics box was never intended to be changed in space, and doing so will require some intricate maneuvers and uncommon dexterity. The insulation covering the roughly one-foot-square panel must be taken off, 22 screws undone to lift it out and a hinge installed to hold the panel while electrical wires and a ground are disconnected. Its eleven electrical connections are held together by 22 small screws, which must be removed. ''This gets a little touchy,'' Logan says. ''Remember these guys are working in space suits with gloves pressurized to five pounds. It's not like working in mittens, but like thick gloves.'' Most of the CP repair will occur during the second EVA, set for the flight's fifth day. Once it's finished, Solar Max will be tested to see whether the fixes worked. If not, the shuttle's arm will push the satellite out to full length and its solar panels will be jettisoned by firing the exploding bolts that hold them in place. Then Solar Max will be packed in the cargo bay for return to earth. If the repairs succeed, the astronauts will fly the shuttle up to about 328 miles and release Solar Max to resume its watch on the sun's violent surface. ''I think we'll fix it,'' Logan says. ''We have work-arounds you wouldn't believe. We have back-up ways to do everything.'' BJ END YOUNG (DISTRIBUTED BY THE INDEPENDENT PRESS SERVICE) nyt-03-05-84 1357est ------------------------------ Date: 6 March 1984 04:18-EST From: Robert Elton Maas Subject: Water Rocket Report To: hplabs!hpda!fortune!dsd!dna @ UCB-VAX cc: SPACE @ MIT-MC Could higher specific impulse be obtained in the steam method if after vaporizing the water a high-voltage current were passed through the steam to ionize and then greatly heat it? Perhaps a capacitor could be charged enough that ambient ionization would create runaway conduction (current causes increased ionization which decreases resistance which at constant voltage of charged capacitor causes increased current which increases RATE of heating which means increased rate of increased conduction which soon approaches infinite current) which would discharge the capacitor in a flash and provide both the high temperature and burst mode that are desired. Note that RF voltage superimposed on the DC can cause corona discharge which can trigger the runaway conduction. This can be accomplished by putting an RFC in series with the capacitor and arc-chamber, and putting an RF source in parallel with the RFC. Gary Ford (currently of Calgary Alberta, but of San Jose CA at the time) did experiments where ordinary air could be made to undergo runaway conduction by this method, using an automobile ignition circuit and low-current arc-gap such as spark plug to feed the RF energy across the high-current RFC in series with high-current arc-gap and 1-farad multi-kv power-line capacitors. If it works for dry air then surely it should work for water vapor. The advantage of this method is that switching is done by the RF energy causing runaway conduction rather than by a semiconductor or physical switch that is opened or closed, thus greatly reducing wear on the switching circuitry, giving reliable repeated operation without maintenance. ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 08-Mar-84 0303 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #133 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts at MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 133 Today's Topics: Details of upcoming Solar Max repair mission Shuttle APU's Re: Civilians in space (From NASA Activi - (nf) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 6 March 1984 10:03-EST From: Robert Elton Maas Subject: Details of upcoming Solar Max repair mission To: RSF @ SU-AI cc: SPACE @ MIT-MC NASA has long argued it would be cheaper to service satellites in space than to simply abandon them if something goes wrong. Solar Max cost about $80 million to build, but replacing it would cost $200 million or more. I find these figures hard to believe. True inflation would increase the current cost compared to the cost then, but not by a factor of 2.5 since it was built only a few years ago. I'd believe a factor of 1.5. But since the design work wouldn't have to be redone, only the actual fabrication&testing, much of the cost could be saved, probably more than offsetting inflation. So what's the justification for the $200 million figure?? ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 6 Mar 84 13:09 EST From: Alexander Wolf To: space%mit-mc.arpa@csnet-relay.arpa Subject: Shuttle APU's Does anyone have any info on what is actually wrong with the APU's? They seem to have caused trouble on just about every Shuttle flight (or non-flight!); why are they so unreliable? If I remember correctly, APU's have throughout the manned-flight space program been the source of much trouble (i.e., even on Mercury -- or was it Gemini?). Alex. ------------------------------ Date: 6 Mar 84 19:30:34-PST (Tue) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: pur-ee!uiucdcs!uiuccsb!leimkuhl @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: Civilians in space (From NASA Activi - (nf) #R:statvax:-12600:uiuccsb:6800002:000:427 uiuccsb!leimkuhl Mar 6 20:13:00 1984 They really mean Walter Cronkite or Dan Rather or James Michener or ? The idea is that a great communicator would enter space as a better representative of the American people. Obviously NASA needs the PR. The research displaced by Dan Rather might be amply justified in the long run by the construction of another space shuttle or space station because of the public interest kindled by such a mission. Ben Leimkuhler ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 09-Mar-84 0303 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #134 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts at MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 134 Today's Topics: Re: No More Space Weapons Treaties! Re: Orbital Artillery Death Star? Applying to NASA Re: 70mm shuttle film to be made! No More Space Weapons Treaties! NASA Applications - (nf) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 4 Mar 84 4:47:35-PST (Sun) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: hplabs!zehntel!tektronix!ogcvax!sequent!richard @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: No More Space Weapons Treaties! >> .... They have >> already referred to the Shuttle as a space weapon, and they're >> hard at work building their own! If you don't believe the shuttle is a space weapon, you're pretty innocent. What do you think our Pentagon boys are so interested in it for? "Death-rays don't kill people, people kill people." ___________________________________________________________________________ The preceding should not to be construed as the statement or opinion of the employers or associates of the author. It is solely the belief... from the confused and bleeding fingertips of ...!sequent!richard ------------------------------ Date: 4 Mar 84 4:42:49-PST (Sun) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: hplabs!zehntel!tektronix!ogcvax!sequent!richard @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: Orbital Artillery >> The old problem arises again. If you ban weapons from space how >> do you verify compliance?? This is even harder in space since >> many usefull tools are also weapons (eg. small rocket engines). This would indeed be a problem, if the primary concern were weapons to be used against other space entities. But the weapons that are the primary concern are those that have the power to effect earth-based objects, or missiles/planes in flight. Anything with this kind of power is still neccessarily large - farily easy to detect. The only type of space-space weapon of concern is a satellite-killer. This poses a more serious problem, but still, "tools" won't usually qualify as anti-sat devices. If the ban you're speaking of is, indeed, a personal-weapons ban, measures on the order of the airline security checks should do for quite some time. ___________________________________________________________________________ The preceding should not to be construed as the statement or opinion of the employers or associates of the author. It is solely the belief... from the confused and bleeding fingertips of ...!sequent!richard ------------------------------ Date: 6 Mar 84 12:25:17-PST (Tue) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: ihnp4!ihuxb!alle @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Death Star? [Reprinted from Newsweek, March 5, 1984] A Death-Star Theory Is Born: Nemesis The *really* bad news last week was from scientists reporting that a "death star" periodically wipes out much of the life on earth. The suspect, a.k.a. Nemesis, has yet to be found, but when it is, astronomers don't expect it to look like a killer-just a mousy little orb one-tenth the size of the sun. The problems start, though, when Nemesis's wide- ranging orbit takes it through the Oort Cloud, a sort of holding pen for some 200 billion comets at the outskirts of the solar system. What occurs is the cosmic equivalent of a bar fight as the star's gravity picks up billions of comets and sends them plunging out of the cloud. Most miss the earth, but two dozen or so land direct hits. The impact fills the atmosphere with dust and poisons, changes the planet's climate and, in time, causes the extinction of myriad species of plants and animals. So, at least, goes a new theory that seeks to explain mass extinctions of life on earth. The best known impact wiped out the dinosaurs and other creatures 65 million years ago; other cataclysms occurred about 12 million, 38 million, 92 million and 125 million years ago. The regularity was first noted by paleontologists J. John Sepkoski and David Raup of the University of Chicago, and it sent astronomers scurrying to find a cosmic event with the same frequency as the extinctions. The smoking gun was the impact craters from comets and meteors that scar the earth's surface: the ages of seven of the largest coincide with the dates of mass extinctions. NASA scientists suggested that the impacts, and the craters, occur when the solar system passes through the debris-laden plane of the Milky Way galaxy. But "we are [doing that] now," argues astrophysicist Richard Muller of the University of California, Berkeley, and aren't getting a comet barrage. Muller, colleague Marc Davis and Piet Hut of the Institute for Advanced Study propose instead the Nemesis theory: that a companion star to the sun whose orbit takes it through the Oort Cloud every 28 million years is responsible. If the Nemesis theory is correct, it would mean that the pace and direction of evolution are determined partly by an extraterrestrial force. Survival of a species would depend as much on luck as on fitness-living far enough away, in space or time, from a comet's impact. Muller and his colleagues are poring over records of star sightings to find evidence of Nemesis and are awaiting the results of upcoming unmanned space missions to comets to see if these wanderers have the rocky cores necessary to cause such destruction. Even if there is a Nemesis, it's a little early to build comet shelters. The next barrage is due in 14 million years. ------------------------------ Date: 5 Mar 84 21:35:14-PST (Mon) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: menlo70!ames-lm!statvax!eugene @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Applying to NASA Applying to NASA is like applying to any other Federal Agency. (Ideally). First, you obtain a standard form 171 from any Federal Agency. Fill this out. Then submit it to any of the nine major NASA centers. (Along with a resume.) Then wait. It despends on your background and what you want to do, and what that NASA Center does. (Has anybody described the organization of NASA to the net in recent days? If not, send me mail and I will post a terse description, I have work at four for various lengths of time.) You will get paid Civil Service wages which are maybe competittive in the computer field for about 2 years, after which you will make more than industry, so don't join for the money. The Other problem is that NASA tends to be somewhat backward in using computers (I note the earlier news about turning a perfectly good autonomous system into one which men could manipulate, this is true.). UNIX is unknown turf for lots of NASA people. Seems to be a problem with those who pioneered (not just NASA) computers, seems to stay with existing equipment and vendors (and software). However, things are changing, NASA realizes this and is making efforts to change, so you have a nice badwagon opportunity, if you can stand the wait. If the money is a problem, (I know the wife and kids) you can perhaps join as a contractor to NASA with certain organizations who contract to NASA: IBM, GE, Rockwell, Informatics (who runs this machine), etc. and various universities (Caltech who runs JPL), etc. This is a little bit harder as you must seek out these contractors. Also, unfortunately, contractors as seen as second class civil servants. Few wield `power' (Although I know many who actually are sharper than the surrounding CSes or contractors). Lastly, there are special Institutes and Centers which is many cases are contracted. These are like the Lunar Receiving Lab, ICASE (At Langley RC), RIACS (Here at Ames). These are run by contractors, but have slightly better status. JPL sort of falls into this class (They have third party contractors to NASA). One last point to make about NASA Centers, most are located in the S and SE parts of the country. There are exceptions: Ames and JPL are on the West Coast. Lewis RC is in Ohio, and the Goddard Space Flight Center is in MD. NASA HQ is variously in the N or S which ever is convenient at the time. If you are interested in Ames, send me a resume, we can vtroff it (Let me know the macro package). If there is a need to describe which Center does what, I will post a short description. --eugene miya hplabs!menlo70!ames-lm!statvax!eugene ------------------------------ Date: 6 Mar 84 8:35:57-PST (Tue) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: hplabs!intelca!t4test!chip @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: 70mm shuttle film to be made! In-Reply-To: Article <219@ll1.UUCP> > I just read in the Chicago Sun-Times a day ago that on the > rest shuttle flights this year the are going to be filming interior > and exterior sequences with a special 70mm camera. Some time next > year NASA plans to release the film to theaters, but the only ones > that will be able to show it are those equipped with one of those > concave wide screens. What is special about the camera is that it has an extremely wide field of view. The film is intended for release to planetariums. I hope the folks in Rochester, NY keep an eye out for this. You people have the most fantastic planetarium I have ever seen. But given the nature of the city (e.g. R.I.T., Kodak, etc.), that's no surprise. ------------------------------ Date: 2 Mar 84 6:31:37-PST (Fri) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: ihnp4!ihuxl!dcn @ Ucb-Vax Subject: No More Space Weapons Treaties! I agree with Judd Rogers that a space treaty would be very hard to enforce, especially with the Soviets. They have already referred to the Shuttle as a space weapon, and they're hard at work building their own! I don't think we should sign any space weapons treaty, since space weapons can reduce the chances of an ICBM hitting me. There's already a treaty banning nuclear weapons in space, and that leaves satellite killers and ABM weapons. I think the Soviets are getting worried about our growing space weapons effort, and want to stop us before we gain an advantage. Dave Newkirk, ihnp4!ihuxl!dcn ------------------------------ Date: 3 Mar 84 19:54:39-PST (Sat) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: pur-ee!uiucdcs!uiucuxc!markcoe @ Ucb-Vax Subject: NASA Applications - (nf) #N:uiucuxc:12600009:000:135 uiucuxc!markcoe Mar 2 15:45:00 1984 Application to NASA Hello, is there anybody out there who can tell me the proper procedure for application to the space program? ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 10-Mar-84 0304 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #135 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts at MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 135 Today's Topics: Death Star? Death Star? CalSpace Winter Schedule 1984 More Space Weapons Discussion Re: Civilians in space (From NASA Activi - (nf) Re: SPACE Digest V4 #134 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 9 March 1984 07:19-EST From: Robert Elton Maas Subject: Death Star? To: ihnp4!ihuxb!alle @ UCB-VAX cc: SPACE @ MIT-MC About a week apart I heard two new theories about cretaceous extinction et al: (1) Sun orbits galaxy out of plane, crossing the plane twice each orbit, during which time the chance of passing by another star (which disturbs Oort cloud) is enhanced; (2) Sun has companion "death star" in long ellyptical orbit, which disturbs Oort cloud at each perihelion. Neither theory mentionned the other as an alternative, and both are explained by exactly the same data, the periodicity of major extinctions. So as far as I can tell it's a "ratings week" on TV news and/or a big-lie battle between scientists, with no way to distinguish the two theories (or should I say two flavors of one theory) that they are willing to reveal to us J.Q.Public. ------------------------------ Date: 9 March 1984 07:30-EST From: Robert Elton Maas Subject: Death Star? To: ihnp4!ihuxb!alle @ UCB-VAX cc: SPACE @ MIT-MC The previous message was something I wanted to say for a week or so but forgot. Now I've read the news story that ihuxb!alle sent us, and I have one more thing to say: It seems the original gallactic-plane was half-baked, since it was immediately refuted by the fact we're at this very time passing through the plane of the galaxy but not getting the comet barrage, while the new theory is just grasping at straws to try to cover up the first theory. The whole periodicity observed in the first place might just be sampling error, everything looks vaguely periodic when examined in retrospect, yet only true periodicities can be used to predict the future. The scientists need to do a test of the periodicity by dividing the geologic history of Earth into two equal time periods, using Fourier analysis of the older data to predict a periodicity in meteor/comet impacts and then comparing that predicted periodicity with actual events during the latter half. I seriously doubt that has been done, but I don't know. In any case, if we're still alive a few million years hence, I think we'll be able to defend against the comets. I'm worried more about the next 5 years (subject of Arms-D). ------------------------------ Date: 5 Mar 84 10:02:55-PST (Mon) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: decvax!ittvax!dcdwest!sdcsvax!sdccsu3!coleman @ Ucb-Vax Subject: CalSpace Winter Schedule 1984 ### I recieved this yesterday, and I thought that some of you out there might be interested. As a note for those who don't know what CalSpace is, it is sort of the 'Far Out' Wing of NASA. NASA uses it to do all the things that might make NASA look funny(ie: doesn't have to answer to the Proxmiers for it). --- don coleman@sdccsu3.ucsd sdcsvax!sdccsu3!coleman@berkely.arpa [ ihnp4|decvax|ittvax|ucbvax ]!sdcsvax!sdccsu3!coleman.uucp ### 28 February 1984 CALIFORNIA SPACE INSTITUTE SCRIPPS INSTITUTION OF OCEANOGRAPHY-UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SAN DIEGO WINTER/SPRING SCHEDULE 1984 12 Noon - 1pm Wednesdays* La Jolla Shores Drive, La Jolla, CA Info: (619) 452-4937 ----------------------------------------------------------------------- 2 March Peter Muller (IBM Scientific Research Centre, UK) "Dynamics of Jupiter and Saturn fro Remotely Sensed Data" PLEASE NOTE: This is a joint Pysical Oceanography/Cal Space Seminar on FRIDAY, 3:30 PM Room Location: IGPP Conference Room 7 March Roger Lynch (General Dynamics) "Atlas-Centaur: Commercialization" Room Location: T-29 14 March William Haynes (Aerospace Corp) "Man vs. Machine, Why the Controversy?" Room Location: T-29 21 March Janos Kocsis (Taplow Flight Inc.) "A Trans-atomspheric and Trans-orbital Transportation System" Room Location: Marine Biology Conference Room 28 March Mark Henley (General Dynamics-Convair) "The Prospect of Platinum-Group Elements on the Moon" Room Location: T-29 4 April Robert Bernstein (Cal Space) "Remote Sensing" Room Location: T-29 11 April Edward Bock (General Dynamics-Convair) "Centaur Upper Stage for the Shuttle: A progress report" Room Location: Marine Biology Conference Room 18 April Robert Waldron (Rockwell) "Space Chemical Processing" Room Location: T-29 25 April William Baity (CASS) "Scientific Applications of the Space Station/Platform" Room Location: T-29 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Tentative Speakers for May: Harris Mayer (Aerospace Corp.), Gregory Benford (UC Irvine), Neal Hulkower (Jet Propulsion Lab.) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Please Note: Seminars are held in T-29 (Martin Johnson House at SCRIPPS) from 12-1 on Wednesdays unless otherwise indicated. ------------------------------ Date: 7 Mar 84 7:36:41-PST (Wed) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: ihnp4!ihuxl!dcn @ Ucb-Vax Subject: More Space Weapons Discussion Any reduction in number of warheads that could reach us seems to be a good idea to me. The other delivery methods the Soviets have are a small fraction of their total capability, and there are known countermeasures for bombers & subs. The cruise missiles are only dangerous because they are hard to detect, and a recent AW&ST articles describes a satellite planned to find and track them. As for the gigawatt lasers mentioned before, a few miles of atmosphere should provide enough protection against them or particle beam weapons. If anyone wishes to continue this discussion, please reply by mail or suggest a better newsgroup, such as fa.arms-d. Dave Newkirk, ihnp4!ihuxl!dcn ------------------------------ Date: 7 Mar 84 6:24:18-PST (Wed) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: ihnp4!houxm!hogpc!houxb!lmg @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: Civilians in space (From NASA Activi - (nf) In-Reply-To: Article uiucdcs.6050 # If NASA wants to send a Great Communicator into space, I'm sure the Democratics can think of one they'd like to send, especially if a one way trip could be arranged :-). Larry Geary AT&T Information Systems Holmdel, NJ ...houxb!lmg ------------------------------ Date: 9 Mar 84 09:20:34 PST (Friday) From: rounds.pa@PARC-MAXC.ARPA Subject: Re: SPACE Digest V4 #134 In-reply-to: OTA's message of 09 Mar 84 03:03 PST To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC.ARPA cc: rounds.pa@PARC-MAXC.ARPA I came to Xerox from NASA Ames only one month ago. I also worked for two NASA Contractors (Informatics and Bendix). I would be happy to fill anyone in on how to apply for work with NASA. I can even give you some names which would help. I might add that I left the Government. NASA Ames does have a very big UNIX contingent and its getting bigger, especially within the Numerical Aerodynamics Simulator Project. There was some idle talk about put UNIX on a CRAY. They thought the better of it, however. NASA needs technical people, especially at Ames. As a Civil Servant, I think you'll find yourself managing the work of contractors. You'll become a project facilitator more than a technical person. This can be very rewarding, depending on what you like. ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 11-Mar-84 0305 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #136 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts at MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 136 Today's Topics: CalSpace Winter Schedule 1984 Another reason to take the "death star" seriously Re: SPACE STATION ALERT Re: shuttle films to be made re: space station alert Re: SPACE STATION ALERT Re: shuttle films to be made Calls to Congressmen Number for Space Station Subcomittee Re: Space Station Re: SPACE STATION ALERT Re: Civilians in space (From NASA Activi - (nf) Re: Space Station Space Station (continued) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 10 March 1984 07:39-EST From: Robert Elton Maas Subject: CalSpace Winter Schedule 1984 To: decvax!ittvax!dcdwest!sdcsvax!sdccsu3!coleman @ UCB-VAX cc: SPACE @ MIT-MC Looks like a fine set of lectures. Could you or somebody attending take notes and send a summary of each lecture to this digest? I'm especially interested in materials from Moon and new transportation systems, but the rest are probably of value to the readership too. ------------------------------ From: Joe Buck Date: Sat, 10 Mar 84 13:27:14 EST To: SPACE at MIT-MC Subject: Another reason to take the "death star" seriously The search for the planet Pluto started because of disturbances in the orbit of Uranus and Neptune. However, estimates of the mass of Pluto seem to go down every time more information comes in, to the point where it hardly qualifies as a planet any more. This suggests that there is another massive object out there somewhere, and that its location might be found by calculation, as Neptune's was. By the way, if the "death star" is much larger than Jupiter, shouldn't it radiate a lot of infrared from gravitational contraction (Jupiter radiates more energy than it receives from the sun, apparently for this reason)? If so, it should be very bright to an IRAS-type sattelite. -Joe ------------------------------ Date: 7 Mar 84 15:53:26-PST (Wed) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: hplabs!hao!seismo!ut-sally!ut-ngp!clyde @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: SPACE STATION ALERT In-Reply-To: Article <2570@rabbit.UUCP> <> > To all U.S. taxpayers: There is a significant effort in the House Space > Science Subcommittee to cut funding for a space station by 50%. A > strong showing of public opposition to a space station is critical now, > just before Congress takes its first vote on the issue. The Administration > request for Fiscal 1985 space station definition studies is $150 > million. HERE'S WHAT YOU CAN DO TO HELP STOP THIS WASTE OF MONEY: > 1. IMMEDIATELY CALL OR SEND A MAILGRAM to the following two > Congressmen, stating briefly in your own words that you oppose any > funding for a space station or increased funding for NASA: > (Posted in response to an opposing viewpoint on net.space. > Flames to /dev/null.) ***** No such luck, sucker! If this trash was supposed to be in sarcastic mode, you failed miserably. If this piece was SERIOUS, you are in even a deeper ditch. The building of a space station is long overdue. The U.S. should have built a space station YEARS ago. Going to the moon was fine, but a space station would have set us up for some serious space exploration. Each any and every penny spent on space exploration in general and a space station in particular is WELL worth it. Those who do not believe this are hopelessly stuck in the past (though there will always be those who are - the best we can hope is to prevent them from stopping us). What alternative do YOU suggest to building a space station? -- Clyde W. Hoover @ Univ. of Texas Computation Center; Austin, Texas (Shouter-To-Dead-Parrots) "The ennui is overpowering" - Marvin clyde@ut-ngp.{UUCP,ARPA} clyde@ut-sally.{UUCP,ARPA} ihnp4!ut-ngp!clyde ------------------------------ Date: 8 Mar 84 7:03:00-PST (Thu) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: ihnp4!ihlts!rjnoe @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: shuttle films to be made In-Reply-To: Article <219@ll1.UUCP> <374@t4test.UUCP> Another place that such films could be viewed will be in the planned addition to the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago. This theater is just one of many things to be in the new wing they are planning to add to showcase space exploration. Many of the exhibits apparently are planned to give museum visitors the feeling of being an astronaut through simulation. Roger Noe ihnp4!ihlts!rjnoe ------------------------------ Date: 7 Mar 84 13:23:43-PST (Wed) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: harpo!ulysses!burl!clyde!floyd!whuxle!spuxll!abnjh!u1100a!pyuxn!pyuxww!pyuxvv!brt @ Ucb-Vax Subject: re: space station alert @ <- receive thy gift, o blank-line eater, and let me by.. I've just called the phone number for the Science and Technology Committee (provided by Allen England ihnp4!ihuxb!alle). When I asked the receptionist how many people have called in their support, she said that she didn't know, but that their workload had increased significantly and they will definitely have to work overtime and weekends to catch up. She even wondered whether the callers had intended to slow them up. B.Reytblat ...!pyuxvv!brt ------------------------------ Date: 8 Mar 84 8:51:41-PST (Thu) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: harpo!ulysses!allegra!alice!rabbit!wolit @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: SPACE STATION ALERT > The building of a space station is long overdue. > The U.S. should have built a space station YEARS ago. Going to the moon > was fine, but a space station would have set us up for some serious > space exploration. > Each any and every penny spent on space exploration in general and a space > station in particular is WELL worth it. Those who do not believe this > are hopelessly stuck in the past (though there will always be those who > are - the best we can hope is to prevent them from stopping us). > What alternative do YOU suggest to building a space station? > -- > Clyde W. Hoover @ Univ. of Texas Computation Center; Austin, Texas > (Shouter-To-Dead-Parrots) My, what persuasive arguments you have! I still haven't heard what we'd be getting from a space station that's worth even ONE penny, no less "each and every". Just a lot of arm waving and shouting (as if to dead parrots), but no particulars. On the other hand: 1. We've done just fine exploring space without a space station. In fact, we've done just fine without people in space at all. Examples: the Pioneer, Viking, Explorer, Ranger, etc., series. We've returned lunar soil samples with robot probes, photographed the moons of Saturn, all for a LOT less than it would have cost for manned missions, and all without a space station. 2. Building a space station would SLOW DOWN the advance of space science. Every penny spent on a station, is a penny NOT spent on exploration, and they're not talking about pennies, but billions of dollars. Ask an astronomer, planetologist, climatologist, etc., what she'd rather have the money spent on. Scientists are not the ones behind a station. 3. Considering that the Reagan administration is working hard to push high school biology texts back into the 19th century, their commitment to a space station in the name of "science" is hard to swallow. Face it, they want a military base in space before the Russkies get one. They also want it in NASA's budget so the War Department's budget doesn't look quite so bad, and so us geeks can feel like we're supporting science instead of a military machine. 4. If the commercial potential of space is so great, let the companies that will benefit from a station fund it. That's called "investment", and it's the basis of capitalism, which is good, right? Frankly, I don't see the market for perfectly round plastic beads as so promising, but if DuPont wants to pay for it, more power to them. We didn't pay for all the communication satellites that are up there making money, why should we suddenly be getting into the space business business now? (Answer: because the companies concerned either don't think there's any profit in it any more than I do, or they'd rather have us suckers shoulder the risk so they can reap the profits later.) OK, let's hear your arguments, if you have any. Jan Wolitzky, AT&T Bell Labs, Murray Hill, NJ ------------------------------ Date: 8 Mar 84 10:48:23-PST (Thu) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: hplabs!hao!seismo!rlgvax!cvl!louie @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: shuttle films to be made In-Reply-To: Article <219@ll1.UUCP> <374@t4test.UUCP>, <385@ihlts.UUCP> ------------------------------ Date: 8 Mar 84 6:06:03-PST (Thu) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: decvax!decwrl!daemon @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Calls to Congressmen From: dvinci::fisher (Burns Fisher, MRO3-1/E13, 231-4108) > (approximate quote) The people in Fuqua's office said I should have > contacted the Science and Technology office. The S & T office said > they were counting calls and states to pass on... My call to Volkmer was taken by the person who answered the phone. The Fuqua phone answerer forwarded me to the S & T office. Everyone was very polite, and sounded like they had dealt with a good many of these calls, but no one asked for my state. I wonder if this means anything (for example, that the phone messages are immediately deposited in the circular file, or that the decision has already been made). Burns ...allegra!decwrl!rhea!dvinci!fisher ------------------------------ Date: 8 Mar 84 14:47:38-PST (Thu) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: ihnp4!ihuxl!dcn @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Number for Space Station Subcomittee The correct number to call to show your support of the Space Station program and NASA funding in general is (202) 225-7858. I tried the other number posted previously to netnews and was informed that it was incorrect, and I was then transferred to the above number. Call now to insure the vital early funding is not cut! Dave Newkirk, ihnp4!ihuxl!dcn ------------------------------ Date: 8 Mar 84 15:50:42-PST (Thu) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: ihnp4!ihlts!rjnoe @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: Space Station In-Reply-To: Article <2578@rabbit.UUCP> Quoting from rabbit!wolit: >> In fact, we've done just fine without people in space at all. >> Examples: the Pioneer, Viking, Explorer, Ranger, etc., series. But from where did the technology that enabled us to accomplish these things come? The manned space program. From where did the big push that has brought computing (and many other sciences) up to their present stage of sophistication? The manned space program. Pioneer and Viking would never have happened had we not pushed on to the moon. The earlier examples, all together, provided us with a small fraction of the data we gathered with a single moon landing mission. Future activities in planetary exploration, not to mention our technology in general, depend upon a healthy manned space program. >> Building a space station would SLOW DOWN the advance of space >> science. Every penny spent on a station, is a penny NOT spent on >> exploration . . . This type of fallacious thinking is all too common. Manned space exploration draws money to unmanned space science and produces money for unmanned space missions. Unmanned space science budgets have always followed manned space science budgets, up AND down (except before there was any manned space exploration). >> Scientists are not the ones behind a station. Bull. >> Considering that the Reagan administration is working hard to push >> high school biology texts back into the 19th century, their >> commitment to a space station in the name of "science" is hard to >> swallow. That's the most illogical statement I've heard in a long time. What the hell do biology texts have to do with space stations? Secondly, what makes you think that Reagan's motives are even relevant here? Manned space exploration has the potential to be the greatest pacifying influence on mankind ever seen because of its ability to unite us as one people on a tiny planet and as a statement about the human spirit. To forever deny people the opportunity to boldly go where no human has gone before is to lower them to the level of the cockroaches. >> If the commercial potential of space is so great, let the >> companies that will benefit from a station fund it. . . . >> We didn't pay for all the communication satellites that are up there >> making money, why should we suddenly be getting into the space >> business now? Every time you pay for a telephone call, you help pay for a communication satellite, whether your call goes by one or not. That is how capitalism works. You have benefitted many times over from the manned space program, whether you realize this or not. Manned space exploration overall is a money MAKING venture, producing in a decade several times what was spent on it. If space exploration is left entirely to private companies, then there will be very little basic space science research going on. Apparently you are against this research. Would you prefer space to be controlled by individual private interests? -- Roger Noe AT&T Bell Laboratories ihnp4!ihlts!rjnoe ------------------------------ Date: 7 Mar 84 6:15:06-PST (Wed) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: ihnp4!houxm!hogpc!pegasus!hocse!dls @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: SPACE STATION ALERT In-Reply-To: Article <2570@rabbit.UUCP> Cute. Why don't you contribute some substantial criticism of the space station as a probject. I'm sure we'd all be interested and the net would be more interesting as a result. If we(space station advocates) can't convince a person such as yourself that a space station is 1)the essential next step in space 2)extremely important to the human future 3)likly to produce significant economic return 4)well worth a billion a year for ten years then maybe we shouldn't have one. But give us a chance to make our case. Dale. ------------------------------ Date: 8 Mar 84 2:58:24-PST (Thu) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: decvax!genrad!wjh12!n44a!ima!inmet!nrh @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: Civilians in space (From NASA Activi - (nf) #R:statvax:-12600:inmet:3400003:000:297 inmet!nrh Mar 7 10:47:00 1984 Actually, what's wrong with "tourists"? So long as they pay enough to make it worthwhile..... Of course, NASA should consider the greater impact of allowing a technical type from a large firm that might use more shuttle space later, but why not allow private individuals to bid for the spaces? ------------------------------ Date: 8 Mar 84 20:50:02-PST (Thu) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: harpo!eagle!mhuxl!ulysses!allegra!karn @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: Space Station In-Reply-To: Article <2578@rabbit.UUCP> <386@ihlts.UUCP> This appears to be the classic "men in space" vs "machines in space" debate that has gone on since the earliest days of the space program. There are merits to the arguments on both sides, but each has some fallacies as well. There is no doubt that specific, well defined, purely scientific programs can be carried out more cheaply with unmanned spacecraft. However, as beneficial as they might be to science, unmanned programs simply don't get the media hype that much less "worthwhile" (to the scientists) manned projects get. It is this public support, sometimes bordering on the romantic, that the scientists must rely on to support their work also. I wish the machine-in-space camp would stop complaining about the relative amounts of money being allocated for the shuttle and the space station. Their time would be better spent figuring out ways to get as much scientific mileage out of them as possible, and in presenting the united front to the legislature that's needed in increasing the overall NASA budget, unmanned missions included. This is why I suggest that letters to your representatives endorse support for BOTH manned and unmanned missions. Yes, science was almost an afterthought in the Apollo program, but lunar science is still far better off than if the Apollo program never existed. Without Apollo, there probably wouldn't have been a Ranger, Surveyor or Lunar Orbiter. Them's the political facts. On the other side, I'd like to see more accomodations made by the manned space flight people to the scientists, who are after all doing much with their limited resources. I cringe when I see all that empty space in the cargo bay that could have been used by scientific payloads of opportunity (bigger than GAS cans). Scientific groups are chronically poor, and applying the same rates to them as well as to commercial customers just isn't fair. Phil ------------------------------ Date: 9 Mar 84 8:15:17-PST (Fri) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: harpo!ulysses!allegra!alice!rabbit!wolit @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Space Station (continued) Responding to Roger Noe (who was responding to me): > But from where did the technology [for unmanned space probes] come? > The manned space program. First of all, that's wrong. There were unmanned probes and satellites long before there were manned ones. Besides, you could trace all modern technology back to primitive levers, wheels, etc., and that still doesn't mean that NASA should spend its money building wheels. > Manned space exploration draws money to unmanned space science > and produces money for unmanned space missions. This is trickle-down budgeting. It's also voodoo. If I have one dollar for a NASA budget and I give 90 cents to the space station project, I have only ten cents left for science, not another dollar. [Scientists are not the ones behind a station.] > Bull. A most concise argument, but not compelling. > What the hell do biology texts have to do with space stations? Very simply, anyone working to have evolution removed from science textbooks is clearly NOT interested in advancing science, and cannot claim that as a justification for a space station. I thought my point was clear. Do you understand now? > Manned space exploration has the potential to be the greatest pacifying > influence on mankind ever seen. The potential, maybe. But over two decades of manned space programs has had anything but this effect in practice. Certainly, increasing the role of the military in the US space program, as Reagan wants, would have exactly the opposite result. > To forever deny people the opportunity to boldly go where no human has > gone before is to lower them to the level of the cockroaches. I have no desire to deny anyone such an opportunity. I simply refuse to pay for what I consider to be a boondoggle. If you want to build a Star Ship, and pay for it yourself, go right ahead. As I said, I'm 100% behind the private commercialization of space. My company makes a lot of its money that way. If the government had built the comsats, it would have a claim to the profits, which we want for ourselves and deserve, since we took the risk. Claiming that we all benefit from some technology does not mean that the government should get involved: we all benefit from automobiles, yet I don't want the US going into competition with General Motors. (By the way, you might note that cockroaches do indeed have the ability to "boldly go where no man has gone before" -- try following one some day!) Jan Wolitzky, AT&T Bell Labs, Murray Hill, NJ ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 12-Mar-84 0303 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #137 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts at MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 137 Today's Topics: space station vs "pure scientific exploration" Another reason to take the "death star" seriously --> teensy lie Re: SPACE STATION ALERT -> Why space station? Public criticism of the space station by space scientists Tally for space station, even on Sundays! Lie? Them's fightin' words Zen and the art of space travel Re: 70mm shuttle film to be made! Re: 70mm shuttle film to be made! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 11 Mar 1984 04:50-PST Subject: space station vs "pure scientific exploration" From: BILLW@SRI-KL To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC Message-ID: <[SRI-KL]11-Mar-84 04:50:48.BILLW> Isnt it a generaly accepted fact that scientists have enough raw data from previous and ongoing space research to keep them busy for years and years? I think its time for technology, engineering, industry, and yes, even the military, to catch up!!!! Lets build the space station. A space station will provide a lot more benifit to pure science (as a base for exploration, 0 G lab, etc) than more pure scientific exploration will provide to the other camps I have mentioned. End of debate.... Chops ------------------------------ Date: 11 March 1984 09:58-EST From: Robert Elton Maas Subject: Another reason to take the "death star" seriously --> teensy lie To: buck @ NRL-CSS cc: SPACE @ MIT-MC From: Joe Buck Date: Sat, 10 Mar 84 13:27:14 EST (Jupiter radiates more energy than it receives from the sun) This is a famous "lie by understatement" that I pointed out several months ago on this list. Every planet radiates more energy than it receives, because every planet has some radioactive materials which decay releasing energy in the form of heat, and both this additional heat and all the energy received from the Sun must be radiated or else the planet will keep getting hotter and hotter and hotter etc. What actually happens is it keeps getting hotter until blackbody radiation plus special radiation (such as from lightning etc.) just equals incoming (solar-mostly) radiation plus radioactive-decay-energy plus gravitational-collapse energy. At that point it reaches equilibrium and the following equations/inequalities hold: OUT = IN + RadioactiveEnergy + GravitationalCollapseEnergy OUT = IN + PositiveNumber + NonnegativeNumber OUT > IN The only spcial thing about Jupiter is it emits A LOT MORE energy than it receives, whereas other planets only emit A TEENSY BIT MORE than they receive. ------------------------------ Date: 11 March 1984 10:22-EST From: Robert Elton Maas Subject: Re: SPACE STATION ALERT -> Why space station? To: harpo!ulysses!allegra!alice!rabbit!wolit @ UCB-VAX cc: SPACE @ MIT-MC I'd gladly pay my share of the station IN ADDITION to what's already being spent for space stuff ($150 million / 500,000,000 people = $.30 per capita), in fact I'd gldly pay three times that each year for the next five years if it would get the station built sooner. You have some valid arguments for not diverting planetary-program funds to the space station, essentially arguments about how wonderful the planetary program is (and I agree, in fact I want more funds for the planetary program), but no arguments against the space station per se. You challange us to give arguments in favor of the space station. (1) zero-gee experiments of long duration, both for materials processing and biological experiments, (2) a nice place for people like me with bad backs to have sex and sleep without strain of gravity making everything painful, (3) rendezvous point for space ships, including facilities for food and water and toilet and medical supplies that may be needed in an emergency by some crew whose own ship has broken down, (4) assembly place for advanced spacecraft such as proposed modular-spacecraft planetary program, (5) first step in full industrialization of space using lunar and other non-Earth materials, (6) eventually place for mankind to survive nuclear war or other Earth-based disaster. After we've solved problems of long-duration habitat in space, and have industry etc. out there, we can move toward longrange plans in both science and survival (for example: sending crews to explore nearby stars, setting up large radio and astronomical facilities for observing more remote stars, shielding Earth from our Sun later in the Sun's life when it is hotter than at present, moving mankind closer to the Sun and/or setting upmirrors to concentrate sunlight on Earth much later when the Sun is dying and not emitting anywhere as much energy as it does now, and finally moving mankind to another star before our dying white-dwarf Sun gets to the point where it doesn't produce enough energy to support mankind any more). To accomplish all that, we need a lot of things now (yesterday), one of which is a permanently-staffed space station. ------------------------------ Date: 11 March 1984 11:56-EST From: Robert E. Bruccoleri Subject: Public criticism of the space station by space scientists To: SPACE-ENTHUSIASTS @ MIT-MC It is deeply troubling to see members of the space science community openly urging the cancellation of the space station for a number of reasons: 1) Politically, it can be disasterous for all space exploration efforts. There are many politicians who feel spending money on space is a waste of money, and will use these criticisms by experts to justify reduction of all space efforts. Any negative comments like this are bound to be taken out of context, and the good intentions of the critics won't mean squat. 2) It is divisive within the space community as a whole. We should not attacking each other in front of Congress over the small piece of the pie we get for our efforts; rather, we should work together to get more money for everyone's projects of interest. Also, it's bad for morale. The idea that a planetary scientist would write a Congressional committee urging cancellation of the space station which I support strongly is first depressing and second angering. These differences of opinion should be settled outside such an influential arena. 3) There are many space enthusiasts who want to go into space themselves, or at least make it possible for their children (that's my sentiment). A likely path to this is the settlement of space (a la O'Neill's High Frontier), and for that path, a space station will be very useful. 4) The space station proposed by Reagan is a civilian station, no military involvement. If that attribute can be maintained as the station is constructed and flown (assuming that it isn't cut), and if its commercial potential is realized, then there will business interests in stopping the militarization of space as military and civilian uses will tend to clash. Remember, the military applications of the shuttle arose because there wasn't enough support from the civilian space effort to get past Congress and the administrations. If DOD changes its mind about a space station and the civilian space station support is weak, the same thing could happen here. 5) Historically, (if you can draw conclusions about a 25 year old program) the fortunes of space science have been closely tied to manned space programs. It hasn't been exclusionary (every dollar spent on manned space is one less spent on unmanned space, as claimed). Every planetary probe up to and including Voyager was planned and started during the time of the Apollo program. With the improvement in NASA's fortunes with the flying of the space shuttle, we now have one new start (Venus Radar Mapper), and possible another (Mars Geoscience/Climatology). Trickle down, voodoo space funding if you will. But, if I were a space scientist, I wouldn't tempt history and I'd support bigger NASA budgets in any form. I could say more, but I've written enough. To Jan Wolitzky, you did a nasty thing to your brethren. It's unlikely that you'll repent, but I hope that we can undo the damage you've done. ------------------------------ Date: 11 March 1984 16:45-EST From: Robert Elton Maas Subject: Tally for space station, even on Sundays! To: SPACE @ MIT-MC I took a chance and called that number (202-225-7858) this Sunday afternoon and they not only were open but answered the phone immediately. This is a winner! They seemed in a rush to get a quick tally and then chase you off the phone, although if you have another point to raise they'll listen to that too and jot it down, rather than hang up on you. That means you can't discuss the subtle points of what you want in space, but you save money because they don't draw you into a long phone call. I think I was able to complete my call (voicing my support for space program, including space station and lunar polar orbiter) in under a minute, so it cost me only 29 cents (one minute rate from California). I don't know if they're open 11pm to 8am during the week, so those of you who don't get this message until Monday and thus can't call this Sunday and don't want to wait until next weekend and can't afford weekday long-distance rates might give it a try at night and report back whether they answered. ------------------------------ From: Joe Buck Date: Sun, 11 Mar 84 17:40:37 EST To: REM at MIT-MC Subject: Lie? Them's fightin' words Cc: SPACE at MIT-MC Mr. Maas took a statement of mine out of context (that Jupiter radiates more energy than it receives from the sun) and accuses me of a LIE, even though the statement is clearly true, by pointing out that other planets must also radiate more heat than they receive from the sun, owing to radioactive decay. Since I was proposing trying to detect Nemesis (the alleged "death star") by infrared radiation in my message, it was clear from context that I was talking about a SIGNIFICANT level of radiation. Nowhere did I state or imply that anything was special about Jupiter, instead I pointed out that Nemesis should be bright in the infrared for similar reasons that Jupiter radiates. I feel that Mr. Mass owes me an apology. I occasionally make a mistake; sometimes even very stupid ones. But I will not tolerate being called a liar. ARPA: buck@nrl-css UUCP: ...!decvax!nrl-css!buck -Joe ------------------------------ Date: 11 Mar 1984 21:26:21-EST From: Dale.Amon at CMU-RI-FAS Subject: Zen and the art of space travel I used the above title, for those familiar with the similarly named book because the preceding arguments on manned vs unmanned (and arguments going back to the early days with Van Allen) miss a very important point, a very human point. We go to EXPERIENCE the universe. A photo of Saturn's rings does little more than whet the appettite to BE there, to see the enormous rings stretching across a black sky. We are pushing for the space station because it brings closer the day when those of us bantering on the network will personally go. Vicarious experience can never hope to match reality. Worried aboout the tax dollars? Well there is nothing else the government is doing that I care to have MY tax dollars used for. If we didn't have the high taxes, economic interference, etc, we would indeed not require federal help. "Mais, c'est ne pas le mieux des mondes possible, Cunegonde." D.Amon, Pgh-L5 ------------------------------ Date: 3 Mar 84 23:42:48-PST (Sat) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: hplabs!hao!seismo!brl-vgr!ron @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: 70mm shuttle film to be made! In-Reply-To: Article <219@ll1.UUCP> I heard it was going to be IMAX (that's 70mm sideways), which is the largest cine format in use. Should be interesting at the next Dave Yost IMAX festival. -Ron ------------------------------ Date: 7 Mar 84 14:50:49-PST (Wed) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: hplabs!hao!seismo!brl-vgr!ron @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: 70mm shuttle film to be made! In-Reply-To: Article <219@ll1.UUCP> <374@t4test.UUCP> The reason the field is wider is because the actual area of film per frame greater. This is accomplished by making the recorded image 70mm (less sprocket holes) high. This appears to be sideways from most film formats who use the 70mm dimension as the width of the image. Conventional 70mm also has space allocated for soundtrack. IMAX uses a separate piece of 35mm magnetic coated film (tape?) for sound. There is no squeezing of the picture (like cinemascope or panavision). There are two modes of operation. Conventional IMAX is for showing on flat screens. These are typically 70' by 50'. OMNIMAX uses a different lens that gives a fishbowl effect for showing on round surfaces (like the inside of a planetarium dome). I'm not overly fond of OMNIMAX. Anyone know if they are going to shoot only IMAX, only OMNIMAX or a combination? -Ron ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 13-Mar-84 0302 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #138 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts at MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 138 Today's Topics: Re: Civilians in space (From NASA Activi - (nf) Space Stations Space Station opposition Private space Shuttle Lift & Drag Specs ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 9 Mar 84 7:54:11-PST (Fri) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: hplabs!sdcrdcf!trwrb!trwspp!urban @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: Civilians in space (From NASA Activi - (nf) In-Reply-To: Article uiucdcs.6050 <264@houxb.UUCP> One suggestion I have heard for NASA fundraising would be to hold a semi-expensive lottery for a seat on the Shuttle. This would be good PR and would probably pay for itself and more. Anyone know why this avenue is not being pursued? Mike ------------------------------ Date: 12 Mar 1984 16:03:07-EST From: Edward.Tecot@CMU-CS-H To: space@mit-mc Subject: Space Stations Yes, I agree. This is a trickle-down budget. However, the $0.90 that would not be spent on a station would not go to science either. I prefer to have a space station up there than an extra nuclear warhead in my backyard. _emt ------------------------------ Sender: Heiny.Henr@PARC-MAXC.ARPA Date: 12 Mar 84 17:03:45 EST (Monday) Subject: Space Station opposition To: allegra!alice!rabbit!wolit@ucb-vax.arpa cc: clyde@ut-sally.arpa, space@mit-mc.arpa, Heiny.Henr@PARC-MAXC.ARPA From: Chris Heiny Since I don't have an electronic copy of your reply to clydes' reply, I'll simply list my replies (how recursive...) by index. 1. Name 5 new unmanned interplanetary probes scheduled for the 1980-1990. How many were launched in the latter 70's? Is this doing 'just fine'? How much ore has been refined by unmanned probes? How much medicine? How can an unmanned probe do long term investigation of weightlessness on humans? 2. It depends on where the money comes from. It could also slow the arms race. Building and launching your unmanned probes in orbit would significantly reduce their cost: the launch would be less of a shock, and require less energy. If the probe could be built with space aquired materials, it would be even cheaper. Name two from each category who oppose it. Who is behind it (I don't think it's the Illuminati). 3. I can't argue with your point about the Reagan admin, but look at it this way: should we have ignored German rocket technology in the 40's and 50's because it was used militarily or had potential military use? By the time the station is built, the Reagan admin will no longer be in power. 4. The US now longer operates on a free enterprise system. Social control (but no ownership) of most major industries is not an incentive for private ventures. Could you afford this with the government sucking up 40% of the economy? The market for thin wafers of silicon wasn't very good in 1955, either. Chaotically Yours, Chris Heiny Xerox Corp, Rochester N.Y. ------------------------------ Date: Monday, 12 March 1984 20:35:33 EST From: Hans.Moravec@cmu-ri-rover To: space@mit-mc Subject: Private space Message-ID: <1984.3.13.1.34.45.Hans.Moravec@cmu-ri-rover> a211 1034 11 Mar 84 AM-Space-Business, Bjt,660 Government Launching Private Companies Into Space Business Laserphoto WX3 By GENE GRABOWSKI Associated Press Writer WASHINGTON (AP) - If you want to launch a weather satellite into orbit or grow herpes vaccine in space you don't have to rely on the federal government anymore. In fact, the government is helping companies get started in the business of ferrying scientific experiments and communication relay stations into space in competition with its own space shuttle program. By the end of the decade, scientific research firms, oil companies and weather forecasters are expected to be hiring those companies, instead of Uncle Sam's shuttle, to launch many of their payloads skyward. President Reagan took the first step toward that goal on Feb. 24 when he created the Office of Commercial Space Transportation, the only government agency with which a new space transport company must deal. ''Without this office, a company would have to get clearance from as many as 17 government agencies, like the Coast Guard, the Federal Aviation Administration, and even the State Department before a private sector launch,'' says Jennifer Dorn, the 33-year-old director of the new 15-person office. ''That kind of red tape can be overwhelming to a private company and it can send very bad signals to the investment community, which is interested in these kinds of ventures,'' she said in a recent interview. Specifically, Ms. Dorn's job is to help new companies take over building and selling the kind of non-reusable rockets the National Aeronautics and Space Administration once used in its Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo space programs. That way, NASA can focus its resources on developing the reusable shuttle for space exploration. But the first companies starting from scratch in the space business in 1982 and 1983 were forced to hack through a thick jungle of government red tape. Their calls for help resulted in the creation of the space office, which is part of the Department of Transportation. ''We went to six different agencies and had to wait about six months just to get preliminary approval for our first project,'' recalled Charles Cheffer, vice president of Space Services Inc., a Houston company that plans to launch sensory satellites for oil companies and agricultural combines by next year. ''The government still has red tape because it must protect national security, but the new space office streamlines the whole operation and saves us time and aggravation,'' Cheffer said. One of the most potentially lucrative markets in space is the manufacture of drugs that are expensive to make on Earth, but easy and cheap to manufacture in zero gravity. Industry projections show that space-made pharmaceutical products could generate annual sales of $20 billion by the 1990s. Two of the first drugs that will be produced in zero gravity in mass quantities are beta cells, expected to be a single-injection cure for diabetes; and interferon, used for treating viral infections, cancer and sexually transmitted Type II herpes. Most space production of drugs will take place aboard space shuttle flights, but new firms expect to be launching small orbital labs of their own at a lower cost to drug companies. One of those companies is Starstruck Inc., of Redwood City, Calif., which has already advertised its ''Mack truck'' launching service as an alternative to the space shuttle's ''Porsche'' quality transportation. ''Our Dolphin rocket is still in the testing stages, but it's designed to carry research payloads more than 100 miles up, where medicines can be produced in micro-gravity,'' Starstruck Vice President James Bennett said in a telephone interview. ''We're projecting there's going to be a healthy profit for somebody who can produce reliable service,'' he said. Space Services' Cheffer even forsees cooperative ventures where private companies rocket drug labs into orbit and the space shuttle - on scheduled flights - retrieves batches of medicine from the labs, leaving behind ingredients for more drugs. ''The possibilities in space transportation are limitless, we just don't know what's out there yet,'' said Ms. Dorn. ''The potential markets and the kinds of problems this industry is facing now are similar to those the railroad industry faced when it was just beginning.'' ap-ny-03-11 1333EST *************** ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 13 Mar 84 01:02 PST From: DForcine.es@PARC-MAXC.ARPA Subject: Shuttle Lift & Drag Specs To: SPACE@MIT-MC.ARPA cc: Anderson.es@PARC-MAXC.ARPA, DForcine.es@PARC-MAXC.ARPA Reply-To: Anderson.es@PARC-MAXC.ARPA, DForcine.es@PARC-MAXC.ARPA I'm wondering if anyone out there happens to know the lift and drag specifications of the space shuttle. I need the information for a lab experiment in my fluid mechanics class. Thanks in advance. Debbie ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 14-Mar-84 0302 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #139 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts at MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 139 Today's Topics: Ray Bradbury lecture in LA ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 13 Mar 1984 14:01:55 PST Subject: Ray Bradbury lecture in LA From: Alan R. Katz To: bboard@USC-ECL, space-enthusiasts@MIT-MC, sf-lovers@RUTGERS, bboard@USC-ISIB cc: katz@USC-ISIF Space and 1984 A lecture by Ray Bradbury On Tue., March 27, at 7:00, OASIS/L5 will present Ray Bradbury. The meeting will be held at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory's Von Karman Auditorium in Pasadena. Admission is free and the general public is welcome. Bradbury will speak to the continuing revolutions in our American society, including space, the computer, medicine, jets, immigration, employment, telephones, and freeways. He is best know as the author of "The Martian Chronicles" and has published more than 400 short stories and 17 novels. To get to JPL: Take the Foothill frewway (210) to the Berkshire off ramp , go right on Berkshire, left on Oak Grove up to JPL (follow the signs). Tell your friends! Alan ------- ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 15-Mar-84 0302 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #140 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts at MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 140 Today's Topics: Japanese funding for Space Station ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 12 Mar 84 8:22:56-PST (Mon) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: ihnp4!ihuxt!smeier @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Japanese funding for Space Station I heard on the radio this morning that NASA made a presentation to the Japanese Government on the proposed space station. While the Japanese thought it was a really great idea, they did not make any commitments towards funding the station. NASA had hoped that Japan would commit to paying 10 to 15 percent of the cost of a station. ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 16-Mar-84 0303 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #141 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts at MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 141 Today's Topics: space station Re: Shuttle on IMAX and for real ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 13 Mar 84 13:10:48-PST (Tue) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: hplabs!hao!ames-lm!al @ Ucb-Vax Subject: space station Falacy 1. We've done just fine exploring space without a space station. In fact, we've done fine without man at all. Much of what we know about the Sun is derived from data collected by the Skylab solar telescope. Most of what we know about Lunar soil is from samples returned by astronauts. We've learned a great deal about the Moon from experiments carried out in situ and instruments left on the Moon. Space station is essential to answer many questions life scientists have about the role gravity plays in living organisms. There are plans for several large telescopes that cannot be built without space station or something like it. Space telescope will depend on shuttle astronauts for refurbishment, repair, and instrument changeout. If all goes well on the next mission, Solar Max will become useful because of man in space. Falacy 2. Building a space station would SLOW DOWN the advance of space science. Every penny spent on a station, is a penny NOT spent on exploration, and they're not talking about pennies, but billions of dollars. Ask an astronomer, planetologist, climatologist. Space science funding has been a more or less constant percentage of the total NASA budget. In the late seventies and early eighties when NASA's budget declined so did that of space science. It was blamed on the shuttle, but the facts are that space scientists were not making their case before Congess. Fortunately, this situation has changed. If you ask a life scientist or materials scientist about the space station you might get a very different answer than from the disciplines you mentioned. If you really want to take money from one department and give to space science, why don't you pick on DOD? If we all pull together we can do great things. If the space science folks insist on back biting space station it will weaken the entire space effort. Falacy 3. Considering that the Reagan administration is working hard to push high school biology texts back into the 19th century, their commitment to a space station in the name of "science" is hard to swallow. Face it, they want a military base in space before the Russkies get one. DOD opposed space station when the chips were down. They were never that enthusiastic and eventually gave a presentation against the station to the White House. Proof of the pudding is the heavy emphasis Reagan put on international participation. DOD doesn't want international participation for security reasons. Incidentally, DOD is shying away from shuttle because of the publicity on the flights. I suspect Reagan wants space station primarily for prestige and commercial activities. A bit of trivia, the final White House vote on space station had only one aye vote, the President's. Turned out it was the only vote that counted. Falacy 4. If the commercial potential of space is so great, let the companies that will benefit from a station fund it. We didn't pay for all the communication satellites that are up there making money. NASA did lead the way in communication satellites and continues to do research in support of advanced communication technologies. Building basic infrastructure, such as space station, and doing long lead time research and development is a function that government performs well. The tax return on the increased economic activity usually, and in the case of the space program has, been in excess of the original government investment. The auto industry is a classic case. The auto industry would have gotten no where if the government hadn't built the roads. In turn, the government taxes gas and recoups a sizable portion of it's investment. ------------------------------ Date: 13 Mar 84 7:33:37-PST (Tue) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: harpo!eagle!mhuxl!mhuxm!rhib @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: Shuttle on IMAX and for real In-Reply-To: Article <670@seismo.UUCP> As someone who has seen a shuttle launch for real as well as "Hail Columbia" I can make the following observations: 1. A real launch is a totally unforgettable experience and well worth the special trip; however, you are a long way away, see only launch and SRB separation and its over in <5 mins. 2. "Hail Columbia" is one of the most enjoyable experiences of modern times, giving you views of all phases of shuttle mission. Sound and photography are unbelievably superb (to put it mildly). Well worth the trip to DC just to see it and the NASM (best museum on Earth). The moral of the story is... if you love the Shuttle, do both! Rich Irving, AT&T Bell Labs, Murray Hill NJ mhuxm!rhib ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 17-Mar-84 0303 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #142 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts at MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 142 Today's Topics: Rockwell loses Shuttle Contract? RE: Space Station Alert -- Death of the Species Re: space station Re: SPACE Digest V4 #141 Democratic candidates and space Re: SPACE Digest V4 #141 Space Station Shuttle Contract? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 13 Mar 84 10:55:24-PST (Tue) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: ihnp4!ihnss!knudsen @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Rockwell loses Shuttle Contract? I heard a rumor that Rockwell had lost the space shuttle contract. Can anyone answer these questions: 1) Any truth in the rumor? 2) What has Rockwell really lost, since the orbiters are all built? Maintenance and turnaround? 3) What is the loss worth, ie, is it "major"? ------------------------------ Date: 13 Mar 84 9:19:26-PST (Tue) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: harpo!eagle!mhuxl!ulysses!allegra!alice!rabbit!jj @ Ucb-Vax Subject: RE: Space Station Alert -- Death of the Species >From alice!allegra!ulysses!burl!clyde!floyd!vax135!ukc!qtlon!dave Wed Dec 31 19:00:00 1969 > >Suggested alternatives to wasting money on a space station: > >1) feed a few of the starving people in the world > >2) Give all politicians a lobotomy (semi :-)) > >3) Build a mock up space station (did you see the movie Capricorn One?) > since no-one will be able to tell the difference. > >But seriously, folks, there ARE a lot more useful ways of spending >that much money. >Earth has enough problems: why not solve them before making new ones in space? > > Yours sadly, > Dave Lukes (!ukc!qtlon!dave) OK. Let's answer these. 1) Let's not do any research on how to grow more food, or how to get more energy into a useful form (say from SPS). Let's not look at the earth through all sorts of space surveying equipment so that we can find water/arable land/ etc to grow more food. Let's let the weather wreck everything we grow. Let's close our eyes and commit suicide. All are equivelent statements, as is Dave's #1. 2) :-) indeed. Might be worth it, but it wouldn't cost enough to take a layer of paint off of the Space Station Loo. 3) Fine, let's consume more resources in an attempt to waste as much as possible. I guess this one is :-), also. "there are a lot more useful ways ..." It's clear that some people don't understand that the fallout from the US space program was in excess of 10-20 times it's cost, and that the continued fallout is what is responsible for almost all of today's chip development, miniturization, etc. I've said enough, I can't even be polite about this ostrich behavoir any more. Up the conservatives, there is indeed NO place like Hume. -- TEDDY BEARS ARE NICER THAN PEOPLE-- HUG YOUR OWN TODAY ! (allegra,harpo,ulysses)!rabbit!jj ------------------------------ Date: 13 Mar 84 16:46:46-PST (Tue) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: ihnp4!houxm!hogpc!houti!ariel!vax135!floyd!cmcl2!lanl-a!jlg @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: space station In-Reply-To: Article <152@hocse.UUCP> Why would the pentagon regard a space station as vulnerable? It really isn't. There aren't weapon systems designed to attack deep space objects (even satellite killers only operate in LEO). Constructing such a weapon system could only have one purpose (to attack the space station) and would be politically difficult. Finally, the construction of a manned space station would make it difficult to attack (thick radiation and meteor shielding, and perhaps some magnetic field generators to push large spacebourne objects from a distance). All these things make a space station MUCH less vulnerable than many important earthbound targets. Besides all this -- attacking the space station would be considered an act of war, something that would be foolish given the present (and probably future) state of the world. ------------------------------ Date: 16 Mar 84 07:58 PST (Friday) From: DBraunstein.ES@PARC-MAXC.ARPA Subject: Re: SPACE Digest V4 #141 In-reply-to: OTA@S1-A.ARPA's message of 16 Mar 84 03:03 PST To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC.ARPA cc: DBraunstein.ES@PARC-MAXC.ARPA  A further comment with respect to the possible military use of of the proposed space station. If NASA is sucessful in forming a partner- ship with the ESA, the station cannot be used for military purposes because the charter of the ESA only permits the development of missions that are civilian, thus peaceful, and if possible profitable. NASA may have been born out of a military womb in the middle of the Cold War, and the shuttle may have been delayed because of military requirements ( -aside from the well known materials problems), but the space station is one chance to maintain a peaceful course in the near earth environment, maybe with some profit on the side! ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 16 Mar 84 11:23 EST From: Chris Jones Subject: Democratic candidates and space To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC.ARPA Message-ID: <840316162319.727799@MIT-MULTICS.ARPA> With the Democratic field for the presidential nomination now down to three, I'm interested in finding out where Gary Hart, Jesse Jackson, and Walter Mondale stand on the various space related issues we discuss. Does anyone have this information? (In the case of Hart and Mondale, it's likely they also have a voting record which would be interesting). ------------------------------ Date: 16 Mar 84 10:32:20 PST (Friday) From: Conde.PA@PARC-MAXC.ARPA Subject: Re: SPACE Digest V4 #141 In-reply-to: OTA's message of 16 Mar 84 03:03 PST To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC.ARPA cc: Conde.PA@PARC-MAXC.ARPA In regards to hplabs!hao!ames-lm!al @ Ucb-Vax's fallacy #1. Although I would like to see a space station, I must admit that I, along with some people in the astronomy department at my old school believe that unmanned missions are as effective in getting MUCH (but ofcourse not ALL) of the job done. And they are terribly expensive things to do when the budget is tight. The message mentioned that lunar soil was returned by manned missions. Unmanned vehicles did return lunar soil. However, an astronaut is able to identify more interesting samples. Better robot technology may help that, however. Don't get me wrong, I'm for the space station all the way!! ------------------------------ Date: 14 Mar 84 8:28:54-PST (Wed) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: ihnp4!houxm!hogpc!houti!ariel!vax135!cornell!tesla!elias @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Space Station Regarding the use of a space station if one is built -- anyone who thinks it won't be used by DoD, no matter how they complain about it now, is in terminal dreamland. ------------------------------ Date: 14 Mar 84 16:47:34-PST (Wed) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: ihnp4!ihnss!knudsen @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Shuttle Contract? I heard a rumor that Rockwell had lost the space shuttle contract. Can anyone answer these questions: 1) Any truth in the rumor? 2) What has Rockwell really lost, since the orbiters are all built? Maintenance and turnaround? 3) What is the loss worth, ie, is it "major"? 4) Who is the lucky outfit that picked up the pieces (the rest of the contract)? ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 18-Mar-84 0303 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #143 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts at MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 143 Today's Topics: answers Re: space station Re: SPACE STATION ALERT YACC (Yet Another Cogent Comment) on Space Stations/Human Space Exploration Re: RE: Space Station Alert -- Death of the Species Sending "communicators" into space. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 17 Mar 1984 15:05:54-EST From: Dale.Amon at CMU-RI-FAS Subject: answers Rockwell lost the 3 year, $193M shuttle refurbishing contract to EG&G. Mondale is a disaster for anyone is pro-space. He was one oof the leaders of the fight to stop the space shuttle, and was quoted in Parade Magazine, March 26,1972: "...the space shuttle is pie in the sky -- another example of colossal waste and distorted priorities." His voting record over the years has been in line with the above statements. I really don't know Hart's record, but I'll be checking. I have a sneaking suspicion though, that the only real difference between he and Mondale is the fact that A) Mondale was the front runner and thus has the party/labor behind. B) Gary Hart's campaign team has stamped NEW!! IMPROVED!!! across his forehead. If anyone has detailed information on Hart, I would also much appreciate it. Off the subject...Any fellow L5 members on the net? Let's get connected! Send me mail. Dale Amon ------------------------------ Date: 17 March 1984 18:05-EST From: Robert Elton Maas Subject: Re: space station To: ihnp4!houxm!hogpc!houti!ariel!vax135!floyd!cmcl2!lanl-a!jlg @ UCB-VAX cc: SPACE @ MIT-MC Date: 13 Mar 84 16:46:46-PST (Tue) From:ihnp4!houxm!hogpc!houti!ariel!vax135!floyd!cmcl2!lanl-a!jlg@Ucb-Vax Why would the pentagon regard a space station as vulnerable? It really isn't. There aren't weapon systems designed to attack deep space objects (even satellite killers only operate in LEO). The initial space statin WOULD be in LEO, so I don't understand the relevance between your statement about deep space objects and the point you're making. Remember, we're not talking about L-5 colonies here, or even geosynchronous orbit. We're talking about a station that is built by people on STS flights and regularily serviced by STS. Remember STS is restricted to LEO, a few hundred miles from the surface of the Earth. The other points you raise about the space station being physically more robust, are valid. Many methods of knocking out ICBMs depend on the very thin skin of the ICBM, so thin if you drop a wrench from a hundred feet above it and it hits the ICBM just right the ICBM promptly gets a fuel leak followed by explosion. A high speed projectile (bullet, meteor, fragment of anything at orbigal speeds) or small explosive would surely kill an ICBM (if the ICBM didn't explode directly, it'd burn up on reenty due to the pucture in its skin). By comparison, a solid metal space-station shell might puncture from such a projectile but not undergo an explosion, and since it doesn't plan to reenter the atmosphere the puncture would not be fatal. As for heavy radiation shielding, I think that applies only to later space stations/colonies such as L-5 et al based on massive amounts of lunar materials available at low cost. The first space station would be much more robust than an ICBM, but still somewhat vulnerable if somebody really wanted to commit an act of war. (At last that's my personal assessment.) ------------------------------ Date: 13 Mar 84 23:47:15-PST (Tue) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: hplabs!tektronix!ogcvax!sequent!richard @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: SPACE STATION ALERT In-Reply-To: Article <2570@rabbit.UUCP>, <361@ut-ngp.UUCP> <214@qtlon.UUCP> >> Suggested alternatives to wasting money on a space station: >> >> 1) feed a few of the starving people in the world >> >> 2) Give all politicians a lobotomy (semi :-)) >> >> 3) Build a mock up space station (did you see the movie Capricorn One?) >> since no-one will be able to tell the difference. >> >> But seriously, folks, there ARE a lot more useful ways of spending >> that much money. Earth has enough problems: why not solve them before >> making new ones in space? You're missing several points Dave. The problem with your suggestions one and two is that it's only a temporary fix. In another generation, you'll have an even larger host of hungry to feed, with less earthly resources to do so. And any intelligent person knows that there would be no noticable differance in the behavior of most politicians after a lobotomy, or even total brain death, for that matter. :-) No real reply is necessary for point three. The important thing is: The money spent in space is an *investment* that may someday solve alot of the worlds problems. Aren't you aware that research in "closed-loop" systems might provide the knowledge needed to feed those billions you worry so much about? And perhaps the psychological research necessary to allow humans to live in such circumstances might someday obviate the world's need for politicians in the first place (not to mention psychiatrists and lawyers - what more could you ask?) Considering the amount wasted each year (trillion dollar defense budgets?) eight billion over a decade is a tiny amount, considering what it will someday buy. Some other ideas: Materials research that can only be done in space might discover a new photovoltaic technique that stops the world's dependency on oil reserves - something that will assuredly lead to war if left alone. Drug research taking advantage of micro-gravity might cure cancer, provide better birth-control drugs, or even teach us how to enable crops to fix nitrogen from the air, as opposed to fertilizers. International competition in space between the superpowers might reduce the competition on the ground. Orbital analysis of the earth might help us understand the ecology of spaceship earth - combine that with the "closed system" research, and you might get some interesting new data on what we're doing to our nest. Sit back and think a few minutes, or listen (with an *open* mind) to some of the pro-space people, and you'll hear so many ideas it'll make your head spin. Feeding the poor without attempting to solve the *problem* of hunger is treating the symptoms and ignoring the disease. The patient will eventually die. ___________________________________________________________________________ The preceding should not to be construed as the statement or opinion of the employers or associates of the author. It is solely the belief... from the confused and bleeding fingertips of ...!sequent!richard ------------------------------ Date: 15 Mar 84 11:41:48-PST (Thu) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: hplabs!zehntel!dual!decwrl!rhea!dvinci!fisher @ Ucb-Vax Subject: YACC (Yet Another Cogent Comment) on Space Stations/Human Space Exploration I am tired of hearing arguments like "why not spend money to do some good here on earth instead of throwing it away in space." Reaching out, stretching beyond our capabilities, spending effort on activities that are beyond what is required just for existence is a large part of what makes us human. How many of us wish that the great cathedrals of the middle ages had never been built? Yet the equivalent of millions of dollars were spent on them in the midst of enormous poverty. What finally broke the cycle of the Dark Ages? Not stopping work on frivilous pursuits! It was the Renaissance...the epitome of impracticality. All that work put into non-food things like music, paintings, and buildings! Now don't get me wrong...I am certainly not advocating ignoring the unfortunate. Another large part of being human is having compassion. What I am saying is that it is not an choice of one or the other; they should be companions. If we refuse to reach out to accept the challenge of space, we are denying our humanity just as thoroughly as if we abandon a neighbor or a fellow world citizen in need. Burns UUCP: ... {decvax|allegra|ucbvax}!decwrl!rhea!dvinci!fisher ARPA: decwrl!rhea!dvinci!fisher@{Berkeley | SU-Shasta} ------------------------------ Date: 15 Mar 84 14:05:59-PST (Thu) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: hplabs!zehntel!dual!fair @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: RE: Space Station Alert -- Death of the Species In-Reply-To: Article <2602@rabbit.UUCP> I was preparing a blast for Mr. Lukes, but I see that rabbit!jj beat me to it. I agree substiantially with what jj said... (Hello David. Moved from Root Computers, I see.) Erik E. Fair dual!fair@BERKELEY.ARPA {ihnp4,ucbvax,cbosgd,decwrl,amd70,fortune,zehntel}!dual!fair Dual Systems Corporation, Berkeley, California ------------------------------ Date: 15 Mar 84 6:18:11-PST (Thu) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: hplabs!hao!seismo!rlgvax!cvl!umcp-cs!zben @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Sending "communicators" into space. This line starts in column one as a problem work-around... Current thinking is to send "communicators" -- artists, poets, writers, reporters, photographers, etc. Shades of the almost legendary short story "A Rose for Ecclesiastes"...! Ben Cranston ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 19-Mar-84 0305 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #144 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts at MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 144 Today's Topics: mars missions Re: space station Re: SPACE STATION ALERT Re: Shuttle Lift & Drag Specs Shuttle on IMAX and for real Re: IMAX/OMNIMAX camera Re: shuttle films to be made Re: Re: SPACE STATION ALERT -> Why space - (nf) STS Launch Schedule Confusion Re: SPACE STATION ALERT Prior Medicine from Space quote Re: SPACE STATION ALERT Re: Space Station Computer generated OMNIMAX film being produced for SIGGRAPH'84!! Re: Space Station (continued) Re: Space Station ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 14 Mar 84 8:19:13-PST (Wed) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: decvax!genrad!grkermit!masscomp!clyde!watmath!utzoo!dciem!psddevl!milan @ Ucb-Vax Subject: mars missions Seeing how it's been proposed to have a manned mission to Mars in the future, has it also been proposed to build a larger space craft for that mission? After all, cramped quarters like on the old moon missions tend to get quite inconvenient. Also consider the time required to get to Mars, as well as the maximum speed attained in such an expedition. milan (..!utzoo!psddevl!milan) ------------------------------ Date: 15 Mar 84 11:44:16-PST (Thu) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: harpo!ulysses!burl!clyde!watmath!utzoo!kcarroll @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: space station In-Reply-To: Article <152@hocse.UUCP>, <3392@lanl-a.UUCP> * In reference to the objection that space stations aren't >really< vulnerable: Hoo, boy, are you wrong! You say that satellite killers work only in LEO; not true, for them to work in higher orbits they need only be put on a larger booster. Besides which, the planned station is going to be in LEO anyhow, making your argument pointless. You say that the thick radiation shielding and electromagnetic meteor-replellors would make a station well- nigh invulnerable; those ideas are pure science-fiction, and don't represent the state of the art of space station manufacture at all well. A station would be built in a manner similar to the way Skylab was, with the thinnest possible structurally sound walls, to save weight, and with all kinds of necessary equipment (such as solar arrays and heat radiators) hanging off the sides. This would be very vulnerable to almost any sort of attack; thrown projrctiles, fragmentation bombs, laser or beam weapons, etc. Thick shielding will come with later stations, perhaps those hollowed out of asteroids. At present, however, we don't have any asteroids to work with. Lastly, you say that destroying a space station would be an act of war, and so wouldn't occur in these unstable times, for fear of setting off The Big One. Friend, the only reason the military would want to be on a space station, is so that they could use it during The Big One! If the Enemy were planning a war, and the US military had a satellite base, the Enemy wouldn't quail at shooting the station down, any more than they'd quail at shooting up a battleship or an air force base. How then would the fact of shooting up the station being an act of war, deter the Enemy from attacking the station during a war? Sheesh! -Kieran A. Carroll ...decvax!utzoo!kcarroll ------------------------------ Date: 15 Mar 84 11:15:58-PST (Thu) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: harpo!ulysses!burl!clyde!watmath!utzoo!kcarroll @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: SPACE STATION ALERT In-Reply-To: Article <2578@rabbit.UUCP>, <419@sequent.UUCP> * As a matter of fact, sample-return missions have been flown. The Russians sent at least one to the moon, I think as part of their Luna program (yup, I just checked my Jane's; Luna 16 and 20 were successful sample collection missions). The thing included a sample-collecting drill, to obtain surface cores, I think to 14 inches deep. -Kieran A. Carroll ...decvax!utzoo!kcarroll ------------------------------ Date: 15 Mar 84 11:58:22-PST (Thu) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: harpo!ulysses!burl!clyde!watmath!utzoo!kcarroll @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: Shuttle Lift & Drag Specs In-Reply-To: Article <17496@sri-arpa.UUCP> * If anyone out there >does< have acces to the shuttle's lift and drag specs, I'd appreciate if they'd also post them to me; somebody I know is working on a shuttle launch simulation program, and at the moment has to make fairly simple assumptions about aerodynamic characteristics. Most useful would be a citation for some source in the literature giving detailed listings of these specs as a function of Mach number, Reynold's number, angle of attack and sideslip, and variations with changes in flight-control configurations. (Hey, if they're detailed enough, maybe I can work them into MY filght simulator!) Thanks! -Kieran A. Carroll ...decvax!utzoo!kcarroll ------------------------------ Date: 15 Mar 84 8:32:29-PST (Thu) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: ihnp4!houxm!hogpc!houti!ariel!vax135!cornell!uw-beaver!ssc-vax!fluke!inc @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Shuttle on IMAX and for real In-Reply-To: Article <670@seismo.UUCP> <1215@mhuxm.UUCP> "Hail Columbia" is also able to be seen: -Pacific Science Center, Seattle -Science Museum, St. Paul Does anyone have a full list of places this marvelous film can be viewed? I have seen it twice, and much preferred the St. Paul showing. Rather than use the dome of the observatory, they have constructed a special theatre for IMAX films. The shape is rather more that of a curved rhomboid, and optimizes the aspect ratio. The one in Washington is of this design. Gary Benson John Fluke Mfg. Everett, WA USA !fluke!inc 24V,ACXCII ------------------------------ Date: 16 Mar 84 17:16:12-PST (Fri) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: harpo!ulysses!burl!clyde!watmath!watcgl!dmmartindale @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: IMAX/OMNIMAX camera In-Reply-To: Article <670@seismo.UUCP> I'll believe that the film will be an hour long when I see it! Current IMAX films are limited to 35 min or so because that much film fills the film supply reels, which are about 4 feet in diameter and weigh hundreds of pounds when filled. To show a 1-hour film they would either have to modify the supply and takeup reel transport, or have an intermission while reels were changed. ------------------------------ Date: 16 Mar 84 17:12:13-PST (Fri) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: harpo!ulysses!burl!clyde!watmath!watcgl!dmmartindale @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: shuttle films to be made In-Reply-To: Article <871@cvl.UUCP> "Hail Columbia" is an IMAX/Omnimax film. I know the IMAX people have been trying to get one of their cameras on a shuttle flight, perhaps this is what the news report was about. Technical details: IMAX uses 70mm film travelling sideways, 15 perforations per frame. There is over twice the film area per frame than "ordinary" 70mm film. It's designed to be projected on very large screens that fill most of your field of view. Omnimax uses the same technology, but the screen is a hemisphere (usually a planetarium dome or similar) and is shot with a fisheye lens on the camera. I wouldn't have high hopes of long sequences of film from the shuttle. 1000 feet is the longest length of film that the camera will take, and that lasts only 3 minutes. But whatever they get, it will be spectacular. Dave Martindale P.S. IMAX was developed in Ontario (Canada) ------------------------------ Date: 15 Mar 84 20:43:41-PST (Thu) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: decvax!cca!ima!haddock!stevel @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: Re: SPACE STATION ALERT -> Why space - (nf) #R:sri-arpa:-1743200:haddock:16000009:000:920 haddock!stevel Mar 15 11:40:00 1984 What bogus unthought out numbers. From: Robert Elton Maas I'd gladly pay my share of the station IN ADDITION to what's already being spent for space stuff ($150 million / 500,000,000 people = $.30 per capita), in fact I'd gldly pay three times that each year for the next five years if it would get the station built sooner. Try $1,500,000,000 dollars per year amoung (thinking non zero growth) 250,000,000 people. That makes $6.00 per year. Twice an order of magnitude in error. This kind of wrong numbers and lack of being able to look at the next year is what goverment/military planning is all about. Did you hear the report that of major military wepons procurment over the past 20 years only 25% were within budget. And some of that 25% had to cut back on quantities to do it. Steve Ludlum, decvax!yale-co!ima!stevel, {ucbvax|ihnp4}!cbosgd!ima!stevel ------------------------------ Date: 17 Mar 84 10:35:02-PST (Sat) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: pur-ee!wd9get @ Ucb-Vax Subject: STS Launch Schedule Confusion Ok...I'm confused. An article posted to this newsgroup some time ago stated the maiden flight of the Discovery scheduled for 4 June 1984 had been canceled due to the DOD pulling their payload. A more recent article said the flight has been delayed due to the removal of Discovery's APUs for use on one of the other orbiters. An article in the March Sky & Telescope shows the Discovery still scheduled for 4 June and no DOD payload. Could someone in the know please set me straight on the latest launch/payload schedule? Keith Brandt pur-ee!wd9get ------------------------------ Date: 17 Mar 84 16:24:01-PST (Sat) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: hplabs!hao!seismo!ut-sally!jsq @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: SPACE STATION ALERT In-Reply-To: Article <2570@rabbit.UUCP>, <361@ut-ngp.UUCP> <214@qtlon.UUCP> This is unfortunate enough to deserve yet another response: From: dave@qtlon.UUCP (Dave Lukes) Suggested alternatives to wasting money on a space station: 1) feed a few of the starving people in the world The money would not go to feed starving people, it would go for arms. Even if it would go to feeding people, remember that NASA's budget has never amounted to a sizeable fraction of the existing social programs. You don't eat your seed corn, not if you want there to be food later. The space station is a large step towards the eventual industrialization and settlement of space, possibly involving the use of solar power satellites to supplant terrestial sources of power such as fossil fuels, the moving of much ground-based and polluting industry into space, and access to very large amounts of resources that are in short supply down here. Not to mention the immediate development of production of pharmaceuticals and other products that cannot be produced in quantity (or at all) here. Any of these things will benefit the starving people of the world. 2) Give all politicians a lobotomy (semi :-)) The main reason Margaret Mead, for instance, was interested in the settlement of space is that it would give a real chance for the study of many medium to large scale societies in various stages of isolation from each other: something no longer possible on this planet. This would, one would think, have a beneficial effect on the various social sciences, and might perhaps lead to better political systems. Considering the way politicians are leading us, societies off this planet may well be the only ones to survive. 3) Build a mock up space station (did you see the movie Capricorn One?) since no-one will be able to tell the difference. As Hans.Moravec%cmu-ri-rover@sri-unix.UUCP pointed out: One of the most potentially lucrative markets in space is the manufacture of drugs that are expensive to make on Earth, but easy and cheap to manufacture in zero gravity. Industry projections show that space-made pharmaceutical products could generate annual sales of $20 billion by the 1990s. Two of the first drugs that will be produced in zero gravity in mass quantities are beta cells, expected to be a single-injection cure for diabetes; and interferon, used for treating viral infections, cancer and sexually transmitted Type II herpes. While he was referring to private space vehicles, the space station would be an excellent platform for developing just such pharmeceuticals. One would think a number of diabetics and cancer and herpes victims would notice the difference. again From: dave@qtlon.UUCP (Dave Lukes) But seriously, folks, there ARE a lot more useful ways of spending that much money. Earth has enough problems: why not solve them before making new ones in space? How about finding about what the space station is for before claiming it will cause more problems than it will help solve? You give no real arguments against a space station; you just assert it's bad. Why? Yours sadly, Dave Lukes (!ukc!qtlon!dave) It's somewhat droll that, being in the U.K., you don't even have to pay for it. -- John Quarterman, CS Dept., University of Texas, Austin, Texas jsq@ut-sally.ARPA, jsq@ut-sally.UUCP, {ihnp4,seismo,ctvax}!ut-sally!jsq ------------------------------ Date: Sunday, 18 March 1984 20:41:14 EST From: Hans.Moravec@cmu-ri-rover.arpa To: space@mit-mc.arpa, jsq@ut-sally.arpa Subject: Prior Medicine from Space quote Message-ID: <1984.3.19.1.28.15.Hans.Moravec@cmu-ri-rover.arpa> All this forwading does make it hard to keep track of who said what ... The references to space production of beta cells and interferon attributed to me by John Quarterman appeared in an AP newswire article written by Gene Grabowski forwarded by me to the space net. Not that I disagree ... Hans Moravec ------------------------------ Date: 9 Mar 84 11:21:18-PST (Fri) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: decvax!linus!utzoo!kcarroll @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: SPACE STATION ALERT In-Reply-To: Article <2578@rabbit.UUCP> * We're not going into space simply to do science; the main reason for the space station (perhaps not in the eyes of the administration) is to start opening up space for development and (cover your ears!) exploitation. While all the planetary science is very worthwhile, advancing our theories of solar system formation and all that, they are the areas of space exploration that return The Least to the paying public. Perhaps the scientists who sponsor such missions should actually be the ones to pay for them? Although on their salaries, it's take an awfully long time to scrape up half a billion dollars... (heavy sarcasm) On the other hand, the space station wil provide a place to start learning how to do manufacturing in space, including learning how well people can work there. This will be necessary before such things as lunar mining bases, and solar power satellites can be made to work. Of course, if you feel that mankind is destined to stay on the surface of the earth forever, then perhaps you're right in feeling that a space station is a waste of money. -Kieran A. Carroll ...decvax!utzoo!kcarroll ------------------------------ Date: 12 Mar 84 8:41:07-PST (Mon) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: decvax!linus!utzoo!kcarroll @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: Space Station In-Reply-To: Article <2578@rabbit.UUCP>, <386@ihlts.UUCP> * The recent controversy over the early funding of a space station is rather disturbing, and reflects a basic split in the space-science community. Ever since the end of the Apollo program, funding for space exploration has been decreasing in real terms (although this trend may recently have been halted). As the money source dried up, two groups of extremists formed from the above-mentioned community, and started what some of them seem to regard as a fight to the death (the death of the other fellow's program). The two belligerents share a very similar belief: that given a choice of manned vs. unmanned space exploration, only one is necessary, and the other is a complete waste of time. Back in the glory days, they were able to tolerate the other group's wastage; now, however, they are in direct competition with the wasters for budget money. Every penny the wasters get is a penny drained away from absolutely vital scientific endeavours. This cannot be tolerated! The wasters must be hunted down, and eliminated to the last man! There's no time to lose! etc. Of course, one group beleives in unmanned exploration, the other in manned. The battle lines have been drawn, both sides have convincing arguments on their side, and the emotion of the arguments are drawing many unwary passers-by into the fray. The booty will be next year's NASA budget, and the more people on your side, the more likely it is that you'll be able to convince the administration of your point of view (that's dmcrcy for you). Have the people involved never heard of the (Roman?) precept, "Divide and Conquer"? This sort of infighting could easily diminish the space program as a whole. Personally, I think that both aspects of space exploration are quite necessary, and that each contributes to the advance of the other. The distinction between the two is an artificial one; after all, the two disciplines share vast amounts of technology, they're studying the same phenomena in many cases, and are designed by the same groups of people. Myself, I'd rather switch than fight... -Kieran A. Carroll ...decvax!utzoo!kcarroll ------------------------------ Date: 11 Mar 84 13:08:43-PST (Sun) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: decvax!linus!utzoo!watmath!watcgl!mwherman @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Computer generated OMNIMAX film being produced for SIGGRAPH'84!! A special attration at this year's Eleventh Annual Conference on Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques, SIGGRAPH'84, will be a 10 minute OMNIMAX film of computer generated animation. The film is being produced by SIGGRAPH'84 as a special feature of the year's conference. The film will be shown at the Museum of Science and Technology in St. Paul. SIGGRAPH'84 is being held from July 23-27 at the Minneapolis Convention Center, Minneapolis, MN. Michael Herman (SIGGRAPH'84 Merchandise Chair) Computer Graphics Laboratory Department of Computer Science University of Waterloo Waterloo, Ontario, Canada N2L 3G1 {allegra,ihnp4,teklabs,watmath}!watcgl!mwherman ------------------------------ Date: 12 Mar 84 9:11:12-PST (Mon) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: decvax!linus!utzoo!kcarroll @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: Space Station (continued) In-Reply-To: Article <2582@rabbit.UUCP> * responding to Jan Wolitzky:re:government funding Ahem. You seem to be stating that communications satellites were developed entirely as a private venture, and thus are a true example of private enterprise moving into space. Is this strictly true? For one thing, comsats wouldn't be possible at all, without rocket boosters, which were developed for the longest time under the aegis of the government. For another thing (this is where I'm not absolutely sure) didn't NASA, and the Navy and Air Force for that matter, launch most of the early "proof of concept" comsats, and do much of the early research? I beleive this to be so, and also beleive that industry didn't put up a cent of "risk" capital, until after the government had spent enough money to bring the risk down to a level that they could accept (ie. a Very Low Level). Correct me if I'm wrong. This seems to be a classical example of how government can help the country by helping industry. They perform the early, expensive research, that individual companies can't afford. They have a sufficient number of programs going that, even if most of them don't pan out, the ones that do will pay for those that don't. Then, when profitable technologies (such as comsats) have been identified, they're turned over to the private sector, practically as a gift. This doesn't seem to be a valid argument against a space station. Many risky technologies will be able to be tested there, and the presence of men on board will allow for the possibility of repairs to balky equipment, allowing equipment design to be much simpler, and hence orders of magnitude less expensive (presumably). Since your central argument seems to be "if it needs doing, let private industry do it; they've done it before", and since as far as I know, they >haven't< "done it before", doesn't this demolish your argument? -Kieran A. Carroll ...decvax!utzoo!kcarroll ------------------------------ Date: 12 Mar 84 8:55:08-PST (Mon) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: decvax!linus!utzoo!kcarroll @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: Space Station In-Reply-To: Article <2578@rabbit.UUCP> <386@ihlts.UUCP>, <2350@allegra.UUCP> * re: Cringing over wasted shuttle payload space Hmm. I agree, it'd be a shame for the shuttle to go up with less than a full load, considering how much money it costs to launch the thing. However, it's possible for the thing to look half-empty, and yet be loaded to capacity. The shuttle has both mass and volume constraints on its payload; perhaps on the mission you refer to, they were carrying something relatively small and dense, leaving empty room in the cargo bay, even though the mass allowance had been exhausted. In that case, they could have carried up extra payload, providing that it had the density of styrofoam... ...or, perhaps not. Many scientific payloads contain perishable components, and so can't be launched at a moment's notice (or even 6 months' notice). If there are no small payloads available a year or so in advance, when the manifests are being finalized, the shuttle may end up taking off even though it has space (and mass allowance) to spare. Perhaps it'll be on missions like that, that non-NASA personnel will fly as supercargo, as "Payloads of opportunity". -Kieran A. Carroll ...decvax!utzoo!kcarroll ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 20-Mar-84 0302 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #145 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts at MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 145 Today's Topics: Re: space station killing Re: STS Launch Schedule Confusion ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 18 Mar 84 21:39:22-PST (Sun) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: hplabs!tektronix!orca!brucec @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: space station killing In-Reply-To: Article <152@hocse.UUCP>, <3392@lanl-a.UUCP> <3646@utzoo.UUCP> ------------- Thank you, Kieran Carroll, for setting the record straight about how easy it is to kill a space station. I was going to make the same points, and you have saved my fingers some work. One point I would like to add is that the simplest satellite killer of all, good against space stations too, is a few kilos of BBs, put into a nearly identical orbit to the target, but with the opposite rotational sense. Total impact velocity nearly twice orbital velocity (>15 KPS total for LEO) means a lot of kinetic energy. So it costs a little more deltaV to get it into orbit because you have the Earth's rotation bucking instead of aiding you. You can still carry a lot of BBs on something the size of a Thor-Delta. Bruce Cohen UUCP: ...!tektronix!orca!brucec CSNET: orca!brucec@tektronix ARPA: orca!brucec.tektronix@rand-relay ------------------------------ Date: 18 Mar 84 13:21:31-PST (Sun) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: decvax!genrad!mit-eddie!barmar @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: STS Launch Schedule Confusion In-Reply-To: Article <1698@pur-ee.UUCP> Don't expect Sky and Telescope to be up-to-date. Magazines of this form generally are received at least three months after composition is completed. -- Barry Margolin ARPA: barmar@MIT-Multics UUCP: ..!genrad!mit-eddie!barmar ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 21-Mar-84 0303 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #146 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts at MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 146 Today's Topics: Rockwell's lost contract Re: space station killing LEO vulnerability Re: SPACE STATION ALERT Re: Democratic candidates and space Re: Shuttle Contract? Re: Space Station ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tuesday, 20 March 1984 09:34:24 EST From: David.Smith@cmu-cs-ius.arpa To: space@mit-mc.arpa Subject: Rockwell's lost contract Message-ID: <1984.3.20.14.31.18.David.Smith@cmu-cs-ius.arpa> Rockwell lost the contract to EG&G? What I read was that Lockheed beat them for the contract to handle inter-flight turnarounds. David Smith ------------------------------ Date: 19 Mar 84 11:02:38-PST (Mon) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: hplabs!hpda!fortune!norskog @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: space station killing About putting BB's into space: The true Bedouin never poisons his neighbor's well, no matter how he feels about the creep. Lance C. Norskog Fortune Systems, 101 Twin Dolphin Drive, Redwood City, CA {cbosgd,hpda,harpo,sri-unix,amd70,decvax!ihnp4,allegra}!fortune!norskog ------------------------------ Date: 20 Mar 1984 21:01:33-EST From: Dale.Amon at CMU-RI-FAS Subject: LEO vulnerability The vulnerabilty of objects in space is pointed out in a book titled "Confrontation in Space". The author points out that a simple sounding rocket, on a ballistic trajectory with a load of 10p nails launched such that it explodes well above the target path, can set up a 'wall' of shrapnel that will tear apart all but the most solidly protected vehicles. In this case the kinetic energy of the target vehicle supplies the destructive force. The unfortunate aspect of this method is that a terrorist group could apply it. Accuracy requirements are not particularly great, and the throw weight is within range of commercially available sounding rockets. Shrapnel type weapons are in general the most effective available at this time. With no atmosphere to carry a shockwave, even nuclear explosives require very near misses to be effective (of course other effects, such as glow in the dark astronauts and EMP must be considered, but it MAY be possible to shield against such effects. The latter part of this discussion assumes a heavily defended (ie some form of anti-missile system) target. ------------------------------ Date: 19 Mar 84 18:23:43-PST (Mon) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: hplabs!hao!ames-lm!al @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: SPACE STATION ALERT In-Reply-To: Article <214@qtlon.UUCP> In response the the following (edited): Suggested alternatives to wasting money on a space station: 1) feed a few of the starving people in the world Earth has enough problems: why not solve them before making new ones in space? The federal government of the U.S. spends approximately $300-400 billion a year on human services of one sort or another. NASA's budget is approximately $7.7 billion, of which $150 million is earmarked for space station in fiscal 85. I.e., the government spends 50 times as much on trying to solve Earth problems as on NASA as a whole, and about three orders of magnitude more than on the space station. I believe that this is a fairly reasonable ratio, especially considering that NASA's programs have had a large positive effect on the lives of millions of people (communication satellites, pacemakers, computer chips, solar cells, etc.). Communication and weather satellites are particularly effective in aiding the peasants of the world with weather forcasts and communication where no lines have been layed. That's one reason why India and Indonesia have recently put up such satellites. You might be interested to know that NASA's goal is to have a budget equal to 1% of total federal outlay. The present sum is less. This is not an excessive sum to spend on the future. Lastly, reputable economic analysis suggests that each dollar spent on the space program generates $7 - 14 of economic activity. Since the feds take about 25% of every dollar in taxes, each dollar spent on NASA generates $1.75 - 3.50 in tax revenue over the next few years. Think about it. ------------------------------ Date: 19 Mar 84 9:38:22-PST (Mon) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: ihnp4!ihuxt!smeier @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: Democratic candidates and space In-Reply-To: Article <17613@sri-arpa.UUCP> During one of the candidate debates someone from the audience asked the traditional question, "Why are we spending billions of dollars to put a few people in space when millions of Americans are starving, etc, etc?" Jesse Jackson immediately stood up and said, "I agree with you completely. We should be spending all that money on social programs, etc, etc, etc." John Glenn, of course, disagreed, and gave some arguments supporting a strong space program, and support for science and technology in general. Unfortunately, he is no longer in the race. Mondale was a member of the Carter Administration, which did its best to cut the space budget to bare bones. Does anyone know about Hart? ------------------------------ Date: 19 Mar 84 18:34:54-PST (Mon) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: hplabs!hao!ames-lm!al @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: Shuttle Contract? In-Reply-To: Article <1959@ihnss.UUCP> Rockwell lost the shuttle OPERATIONAL contract, i.e., launch, recovery, and processing. Lockheed won. ------------------------------ Date: 19 Mar 84 18:44:49-PST (Mon) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: hplabs!hao!ames-lm!al @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: Space Station In-Reply-To: Article <3626@utzoo.UUCP> This is actually on empty shuttle space. There are three unmentioned reasons for 'wasted' space in the bay. o The shuttle has severe center of gravity restraints. The heavy stuff has to go in the back and if it's not heavy enough you can't put anything in the front. o The shuttle is not yet capable of it's full nominal weight carrying capacity - 65,000 lb. It won't be for a few years yet. o The IUS, built to fail by the Air Force, has caused cancellation of two shuttle flights and caused another to go up almost empty. The damage is continuing by the way. The most recent IUS's delived to NASA failed their ground tests. If you want a turkey, give the project to the military. ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 22-Mar-84 0302 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #147 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts at MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 147 Today's Topics: Re: Democratic candidates and space Re: Democratic candidates and space space station ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 19 Mar 84 21:51:32-PST (Mon) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: hplabs!tektronix!ogcvax!sequent!richard @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: Democratic candidates and space In-Reply-To: Article <17613@sri-arpa.UUCP> I read in L-5 news, I believe, that Mondale has been one of the staunchest *anit-space* democratic senators. Although I think Reagen's interested in space for the same reason a small child likes firetrucks, this is one area where ol' ray-gun is ahead. I'm still looking for references to Hart - I hope the next L-5 news carries something. I assume everyone here knows about L-5? ___________________________________________________________________________ The preceding should not to be construed as the statement or opinion of the employers or associates of the author. It is solely the belief... from the confused and bleeding fingertips of ...!sequent!richard ------------------------------ Date: 19 Mar 84 10:25:51-PST (Mon) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: ihnp4!cbosgd!cbscc!blb @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: Democratic candidates and space In-Reply-To: Article <17613@sri-arpa.UUCP> I don't have reference to any voting records with me, but I understand that Mondale is very hostile and led several attempts to kill the shuttle. I don't know anything about Hart or Jackson, and would certainly like to given Mondale's apparent attitude. ------------------------------ Date: 9 Mar 84 12:21:37-PST (Fri) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: ihnp4!houxm!hogpc!pegasus!hocse!dls @ Ucb-Vax Subject: space station To Jan Wolitzky: I did miss the two earlier arguments, and tend to agree that the proponents arguments are a tad on the weak side. Lets see if I can do better: > >1. We've done just fine exploring space without a space station. In > fact, we've done just fine without people in space at all. Examples: > the Pioneer, Viking, Explorer, Ranger, etc., series. We've > returned lunar soil samples with robot probes, photographed the > moons of Saturn, all for a LOT less than it would have cost for > manned missions, and all without a space station. It is certainly true that we can *explore* space using dinky robot probes. It is also true that in the short run, it will cost less. However, the large scale exploitation of space resources probably cannot occur without a substantial human presence in space. The man vs machine debate has been going on for a long time, and the best answer usually turns out to be "a combination of both is optimal for any given goal." The best example I can give of the value of having humans in space is the recent Spacelab that had trouble with an expensive, complex camera. On an all automatic probe, that might have been the end of things. As it was, an astronaut crawled into his sleeping bag, zipped it shut, and fixed the camera BY TOUCH! I suggest that having human beings in an orbital lab with industry standard equipment may well be more more effective and less expensive than large amounts of all automatic, special-built, inflexible machinery. >2. Building a space station would SLOW DOWN the advance of space > science. Every penny spent on a station, is a penny NOT spent on > exploration, and they're not talking about pennies, but billions > of dollars. Ask an astronomer, planetologist, climatologist, > etc., what she'd rather have the money spent on. Scientists are > not the ones behind a station. This is a standard argument, and is fundamentally wrong. Scientists would LIKE TO BELIEVE that money taken from manned space fight would go toward unmanned probes. It is much more likely that the money would go toward "social services" or "defense" depending on which side is stronger. It has seemed that in the past the science budget grew with the overall space budget and shrank with the overall space budget. I suggest that scientists are no less self-serving than any other group. To advance their careers as planetologists, they'd love to see Titan probes. This DOES NOT MEAN that Titan probes should be our first priority. If I had to choose between a Titan probe and the investigation of the resources of LEO, GEO, the Moon, or the near-Earth crossing asteroids, I think the Titan probe would come in last. A compromise can be worked out, and the lastest NASA plan for unmanned planetary exploration recognizes for the first time the role of probes in investigating the resources of the moon and asteroids. >3. Considering that the Reagan administration is working hard to push > high school biology texts back into the 19th century, their > commitment to a space station in the name of "science" is hard to > swallow. Face it, they want a military base in space before the > Russkies get one. They also want it in NASA's budget so the War > Department's budget doesn't look quite so bad, and so us geeks can > feel like we're supporting science instead of a military machine. This argument ignores the actual situation. The Pentagon has consistently opposed a space station on the grounds that it is vulnerable. Reagan has asked that the station be non-military and international. I agree Reagan is not the most pro-science guy in the world, but I'm not going to let that fact affect my position on a space station, a particle accelerator, a genetics lab, or any other project the Reagan administration is involved in. >4. If the commercial potential of space is so great, let the > companies that will benefit from a station fund it. ... > We didn't pay for all the communication > satellites that are up there making money, why should we suddenly > be getting into the space business business now? 1)However great the possible commercial benefits of space, if companies a)have no protection from foreign attack or interference and b)have no clear ground rules concerning taxes and liability they are not likely to take any risks. Reagan is not just pushing a space station, he is pusing a uniform policy which supports the commericalization of space. This county has a history of building canals, railroads, highways, etc. in the belief that their long term economic benefit would more than repay any current cost to the public treasury. This has paid off handsomely in the past, and the shuttle/space station are the modern day equivalent of a railroad and a refueling station. 2)We(NASA, the government, you and I) DID pay for all the early communications satellites! It may be true that we didn't pay for the ones up there now, but we don't get the money or take the risk either. Materials processing in space(including pharmaceuticals far more important than the perfectly round spheres) is at the same stage communications satellites were in 1963. 3)This country is competing in space with heavily subsidized, national combines in both Europe and Japan. The government should lead the way in this competition, or we run the risk of ending up importing everything. You could write a book on all the reasons why a space station is important(nay, critical)to mankind's future in space. There are MANY important arguments I have not the time or the room to mention. Someone did write a book, and the book is "Project Space Station" by Dr. Brian O'Leary. It is available from Stackpole books, Cameron and Kelker Streets, P.O.Box 1831, Harrisburg PA 17105 for $12.95. Dr. O'Leary OPPOSED THE SHUTTLE for a lot of your arguments, but has since CHANGED HIS MIND. I highly recommend the book, especially to people with no clear idea why a space station is so important. Dale L Skran, At&T ISL, Holmdel. ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 23-Mar-84 0303 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #148 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts at MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 148 Today's Topics: Space Defense. Justifications for space spending Cypress Corporation Beggs on Space Station Star Wars on the Wires Re: SPACE STATION ALERT Russian space program Challenger to Pad Re: Democratic candidates and space ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 22 Mar 84 08:38 PST (Thursday) From: DBraunstein.ES@PARC-GW.ARPA Subject: Space Defense. While it is fine to haggle over whether or not it is wise to build a space station now, or which candidate supports it, we must not forget the threat of the development of space weapons by the major powers. Many of you out there quibble about the $8 billion dollar cost of the station, well how about $26 billion for a space defense system. In the March 19, 1984 issue of of Aviation Week and Space Tech., there is an article on page 23, about the Senate Armed Services Committee discussion of the Star Wars proposal. The panel questions the preliminary nature of the proposal at such a high cost, and whether it is really viable. But for all you people out there who kvetch about the high cost of a space station, with little possible return, let's here your opinion about $26 billion for an orbital pile of junk!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ------------------------------ Date: 22 Mar 1984 9:20-PST From: dietz%USC-CSE@USC-ECL.ARPA To: space@MIT-MC.ARPA Cc: "hplabs!hao!ames-lm!al"@ucb-vax Subject: Justifications for space spending Lastly, reputable economic analysis suggests that each dollar spent on the space program generates $7 - 14 of economic activity. Since the feds take about 25% of every dollar in taxes, each dollar spent on NASA generates $1.75 - 3.50 in tax revenue over the next few years. Think about it. Spending money ANYWHERE in the economy generates c times that much activity (for some constant c) by the "multiplier effect". Even redistributing money to random people on the street will generate multiplied economic activity. The only difference is that spending on space soaks up lots of scarce capital and technical talent. In terms of real wealth, if we ignore putative long term payoffs from space research it would be better to put all NASA employees and subcontractors on permanent fully paid vacation. The cost of their wages to the government would be the same, the economic activity generated by their spending would be the same, and the capital and raw materials they had been using could be put to other uses. Try reading Henry Hazlitt's "Economics in One Lesson", chapter 4. ------------------------------ Date: 22 Mar 1984 14:30:08-EST From: Dale.Amon at CMU-RI-FAS Subject: Cypress Corporation PITTSBURGH, March 19 -- The Cyprus Corporation announced tooday that the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has accepted a proposal, presented by the company's subsidiary Astrotech International Corporatioo, to open discusssions relative to the purchase of the fifth Shuttle Orbiter. If an agreement is reached, this venture would constitute the first industry financing of a Space Shuttle. The current NASA estimate for the purchase oof a Shuttle is approximately $2 billion. In recognitioon of the U.S. government's continuing strong interest in the need for a fifth Shuttle Orbiter, Astrotech was prompted to pursue this visionary project, according to Cyprus Chairman Willard F. Rockwell, Jr. "The Space Shuttle program was coonceived to prove that extra-terrestrial commercial ventures are viable," said Rockwell. "As exciting as this idea is to us, " he added, "it really is a logical progression from that original concept -- to see private industry routinely develop the potential of space technology." In 1981, Rockwell became chairman of the Cyprus Corporation which is in the process of being converted from an investment company to an operating company, with the stated goal of serving the aerospace and other high technology markets. Astrotech International Corporation of College Park, MD, was acquried by Cyprus in August 1983. The firm recently completed construction of a facilty near the Kennedy Space Center that will be the nation's first privately owned operation to process and test satellites prior to launch. The facility is scheduled to open on April 5. Other high technology acquisitioos made last year by Cyprus are Special Metals Corporation, the world's leading producer of superalloys for such applicatioos as jet engines and Quasitronics, Inc. a munufacturer of computer peripheral hardware. Cyprus will ask it's shareholders t change the name of the firm to Astrotech International Corporation at the company's annual meeting on April 6. Shareholder apporval of the new corporate name would result in renaming the satellite servicing subsidiary Astrotech Space Operations, Inc. Cyprus is traded on the American Stock exchange. (END) Personal communications with people at Cyprus show them to be ecstatic about the progress they are making. D. Amon, Pgh-L5 ------------------------------ Date: Friday, 23 March 1984 00:06:15 EST From: Hans.Moravec@cmu-ri-rover.arpa To: space@mit-mc.arpa Subject: Beggs on Space Station Message-ID: <1984.3.23.5.3.54.Hans.Moravec@cmu-ri-rover.arpa> a005 2154 21 Mar 84 PM-Space Future,400 Moon Colony Possible by 2010, Space Chief Says By HOWARD BENEDICT AP Aerospace Writer WASHINGTON (AP) - Using a space station as a stepping stone, Americans could colonize the moon by the year 2010 and Mars by 2060, says the chief of the national space agency. ''Just as the airplane opened Antarctica to permanent human habitation, a manned space station, to be built and serviced with the aid of the space shuttle, will open space to a limitless range of opportunities for mankind,'' James M. Beggs, administrator of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, said Wednesday. Beggs outlined a scenario for the expansion of human life beyond planet Earth in a speech at the U.S. Naval Academy in nearby Annapolis, Md. President Reagan in his State of the Union message directed NASA to develop a permanent manned space station, and Beggs predicted it would be in place 300 miles high within 10 years. He called it a ''logical expansion of our activities in space.'' ''As we look to the future, many of our most innovative thinkers have devoted a good deal of time to imagining what the next 100 years in space might be like,'' he said. ''I think we've come to the point now where their vision might very well become reality. Let me paint a picture of that future for you now.'' Using the space shuttle, he said, ''we build a permanently-manned space station. Then we must learn how to tug it out, or move it in other ways to geosynchronous orbit.'' At geosynchronous orbit, 22,300 miles up, a satellite rotates at ohe same rate as the Earth and thus remains stationary over one point. ''As we enter the 21st century, or shortly thereafter, we will have established a manned space station in lunar orbit, which will allow us to exploit the moon's resources,'' Beggs said. ''Out about the year 2010, we could establish a colony on the moon, beginning with a small research station. By 2020 or 2030 we might have an operating productive activity on the moon.'' In that period, he added, robots could be constructing a station on Mars. ''In about the year 2040, the colony on the moon would be flourishing,'' he said. ''Twenty short years after that, the colony on Mars would be healthy and growing. And with the technology being developed today, we could be mining large amounts of material, expanding our economic activities in space and bringing the benefits back to Earth.'' ap-ny-03-22 0053EDT *************** n999 2303 21 Mar 84 . . .d the moon will be the next step, ''as we enter the 21st century or shortly thereafter,'' the NASA chief went on. ''Out about the year 2010 or thereabouts, we could establish a colony on the moon, beginning with a small research station ... (and) by 2020 or 2030 we might, indeed, have an operating productive activity on the moon.'' Robots will be heavily involved in establishing the lunar factory-colony, which - Beggs said - would be flourishing by about 2040. ''Twenty short years after that (about 2060), the colony on Mars would be healthy and growing,'' Beggs said. The NASA chief envisioned for the mid-21st century the sort of colonial exploitation in interplanetary space that began to blossom in remote parts of the Earth some 300 years earlier. ''With ... technology being developed today,'' Beggs said, ''we could be mining large amounts of material, expanding our economic activities in space and bringing the benefits back to earth.'' What is needed to make all this come true, Beggs continued, is ''will, imagination and vision.'' Beggs' talk was the third annual Albert Michelson memorial lecture, named for an Annapolis graduate (class of 1873) who first accurately measured the speed of light and who, in 1907, became the first American to win the Nobel prize in physics. END nyt-03-22-84 0200est *************** ------------------------------ Date: Friday, 23 March 1984 00:09:31 EST From: Hans.Moravec@cmu-ri-rover.arpa To: space@mit-mc.arpa, arms-d@mit-mc.arpa Subject: Star Wars on the Wires Message-ID: <1984.3.23.5.7.57.Hans.Moravec@cmu-ri-rover.arpa> PM-Star Wars, Bjt,620 Scientists Still Arguing About How To Develop Space Weapon By TIM AHERN Associated Press Writer WASHINGTON (AP) - A year after President Reagan outlined his vision of a space-age defense against Soviet nuclear attack, scientists are still arguing whether it is a ''Star Wars'' pipedream leading the world to disaster or to the end of a 30-year-old atomic stalemate. A group of distinguished physicists came to the first conclusion in a report issued Wednesday, arguing that the administration should pursue arms control rather than ''this illusion.'' The private group, the Union of Concerned Scientists, has been critical of Reagan in past years. But Dr. George Keyworth, Reagan's science adviser, said recently, ''it's worth pursuing. Our research is at an early stage and may come to nothing. But if we find something, we (the United States and the Soviet UnIon) could get away from these loaded guns we're pointing at each other.'' Officially, the Pentagon calls the project ''Strategic Defense Initiative'' and Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger bridles when critics call it ''Star Wars'' after the popular movie featuring futuristic weapons. However, official Pentagon budget documents recently submitted to Congress show that one part of the research, dealing with a weapon known as the electromagnetic gun, has been named ''Project JEDI.'' The Jedi Knights, possessors of ''the Force,'' were the good guys in ''Star Wars.'' Reagan, in a March 23, 1983 speech, called for scientific research into a defensive shield which change military strategy from offense to defense and could ''give us the means of rendering these nuclear weapons obsolete.'' The existing concept is ''deterrence,'' the three-decade old doctrine which holds that the nuclear stalemate exists because both know a first strike would not destroy enough weapons to eliminate a devastating counter-attack by the other side. The Union of Concerned Scientists study, written by a group of eminent physicists which included Nobel laureate Hans Bethe, said none of the current defensive systems being studied, such as various types of lasers, will work to make existing weapons useless and, even if they did, the systems could be easily defeated by steps the Soviets might take. ''All these countermeasures would exploit off-the-shelf weapons and techniques that exist today, in contrast to the unproven and improbable technologies on which our proposed defense would rely,'' said the report. ''Hence, the Soviet response will be cheaper and far more reliable than our defenses and available as those defenses emerge.'' Instead, the report said, the United States should limit itself to a pure research program, aimed at making sure the nation is not surprised by any Soviet breakthroughs. ''The only way of handling'' the nuclear threat ''is through arms control,'' said Kurt Gottfried, a Cornell physicist. Similar criticisms have been issued in recent months by other organizations, including the Brookings Institution, which said no workable system will be developed for the foreseeable future. The Pentagon has proposed spending about $3 billion in the next fiscal year and the program will cost at least $26 billion through 1989 without any assurance that a deployable system can be developed, Pentagon officials have told Congress in recent weeks. But Keyworth disputed that figure, saying, ''I cannot conceive of how anybody can estimate the cost'' because ''we have no idea yet of what it will look like.'' However, backers of a plan known as High Frontier continue to push for their system, which would station 432 killer satellites in orbit, each armed with 40 to 50 rockets capable of knocking down Soviet missions. The $50 billion plan has been pushed by retired Army Lt. Gen. Daniel O. Graham, former head of the Defense Intelligence Agency. Graham's proposal has received considerable attention on Capitol Hill but Pentagon scientists say it won't work - a contention which has been disputed by Graham. ap-ny-03-22 0316EDT ------------------------------ Date: 20 Mar 84 18:42:18-PST (Tue) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: hplabs!hao!denelcor!lmc @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: SPACE STATION ALERT I personally think that the government spending ratio (7.7G$ for space vs 350G$(?) for human needs) is *not* "about right"; it is grossly short- sighted and dangerous financially, and furthermore most of the "human needs" money does not help any of the people its designed to help in any lasting way. One last cheap shot - its draining the nation of its will and spirit. This country (indeed, the world) needs the frontier and the promise of space to grow spiritually (if you can still believe in such) as well as all the other ways mentioned above. Spend on (at least for space), I say. -- Lyle McElhaney (hao,brl-bmd,nbires,csu-cs,scgvaxd)!denelcor!lmc ------------------------------ Date: 20 Mar 84 8:57:51-PST (Tue) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: hplabs!hao!seismo!ut-sally!hitchens @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Russian space program I have a couple of questions. Is the data collected by the Russian space program made as freely available to the international scientific community as that from our own? As a non-scietific type (just a citizen interested in space) I know almost nothing about the Russian programs, do they try to keep everything secret or do they share what they learn? For example, I just read on this newsgroup about their lunar mission which returned soil samples, was that data passed on to the rest of the world? Since the current topic is space stations, has there been any serious discussion of a joint US-Russia station? The Russians are the current experts in that area. Such a venture would reduce the likelyhood of use for military purposes, as well as attack by either party. Is such a thing politically possible under the Reagan administration? Would it be desirable? Have you read 2010 yet? I read it this weekend, it's great, read it. Ron Hitchens (Open the pod bay doors Hal...) ------------------------------ Date: 19 Mar 84 9:38:21-PST (Mon) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: harpo!ulysses!allegra!alice!alb @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Challenger to Pad The Challenger was rolled to the launch pad today, in preparation for its 6 April liftoff. ------------------------------ Date: 19 Mar 84 19:15:30-PST (Mon) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: hplabs!tektronix!uw-beaver!ssc-vax!alcmist @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: Democratic candidates and space walter mondale vocally opposed building the space shuttle at all, calling it a ''senseless extravaganza in space'' (exact quote). don't know his current opinion. fred wamsley *this letter does NOT reflect the opinion or policy of my employer or of the management and staff of the software support center.* ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 24-Mar-84 0303 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #149 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts at MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 149 Today's Topics: Re: Justifications for space spending Shuttle Cameras Re: SPACE Digest V4 #148 Re: Justification for space spending High DMZ Fifth Shuttle How to solve budget problem ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri 23 Mar 84 10:07:38-PST From: Wilkins Subject: Re: Justifications for space spending To: dietz%USC-CSE@USC-ECL.ARPA, space@MIT-MC.ARPA cc: hplabs!hao!ames-lm!al@UCB-VAX.ARPA "spending money anywhere ... generates c times that much activity" True, but I think the point is that c=7 to 14 for the space program is much higher than the c you get for randomly distributing money to people on the street. Developing new technologies and useful materials is bound to generate more econoimic activity than winos buying muscatel and drinking it. ------------------------------ Date: 23 Mar 1984 11:27:16 PST From: METH@USC-ISI.ARPA Subject: Shuttle Cameras To: SPACE@MIT-MC.ARPA cc: METH@USC-ISI.ARPA FROM PHOTONICS SPECTRA, MARCH 1984 P. 38: UNIQUE CAMERA WATCHES SHUTTLE The Space Shuttle Challenger carried a unique film-camera system along on its recent flight to provide the first non-NASA documentation of activity aboard. The camera, called a Cinema-360, is a modified Arriflex 35mm Type III fitted with a Nikon f/2.8 lens that provides a 180 x 360 degree field of view. The format of the film, a joint project of NASA and Cinema-360, Inc., a nonprofit organization that develops educational films for planetariums, is designed for use in planetarium domes. The February flight used the camera in the cabin and payload sections, while later flights will employ the cameras in the payload bay only. The footage will be used to produce a documentary called "An American Adventure." ------------------------------ From: KYLE.WBST@PARC-GW.ARPA Date: 23 Mar 84 17:31:35 EST Subject: Re: SPACE Digest V4 #148 To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC.ARPA cc: KYLE.WBST@PARC-GW.ARPA RE: MONDALE AND SPACE: I can shed some personal light on mondale and space. The following does not reflect the views of my current employer. These are my personal observations. In the early 1970's several of us who had designed systems on the Apollo Project were asked to join a space advisory committee to then senator Mondale to help him better understand the potential of the shuttle (this was right after the oft quoted anti shuttle statement of his). We wrote several position papers to illustrate the benefits of the system ranging from biomedical applications to communications for the third world. I got the impression that he was convinced and changed his negative attitude from before to one that was admittedly not overly enthusiastic, was at least balanced on the subject. In late 1979 ( a few weeks before the iranian takeover of our embassy) I was at the white house visiting carter and mondale and several cabinet members. It was a big flap day in that word had just come in that President Park of South Korea had just been assassinated, and the South Africans had reportedly shot off a nuclear device in the South Indian Ocean off the coast of Africa. Mondale mentioned to me that the info re: the South African a-bomb had come in from sensors on a spy satellite that detected flashes that had spectral response and decay times characteristic of nuclear explosions and not natural causes such as lightning. It was clear to me that he was concerned about the sketchiness of such info from unmanned sensors, and understood the benefits of manned space stations in such situations. I'm not necessarily pro-mondale, but my personal experience with him suggests to me that he is an intelligent person who is willing to listen to all sides of an argument. If your side makes sense to him , he will change his mind. Therefore, I would not write him off at this point just because he made some anti shuttle comments many years ago. Hope this sheds a little more light on the subject. Now I would like to hear from some one out there who knows a bit more about Hart. He's the only one I really don't know any thing about at all on the subject of space support. Earle (ex space freak) Kyle. ------------------------------ Date: Fri 23 Mar 84 15:28:04-PST From: Wilkins Subject: Re: Justification for space spending To: dietz%USC-CSE@USC-ECL.ARPA, space@MIT-MC.ARPA Deitz: . . . A dollar spent by a "wino" would have the same effect. Well, If you believe buying wine helps the economy as much as developing a useful new kind of plastic or material or glue then I give up on having a reasonable discussion with you. Mind you, i do like wine, but useful new products and communication capabilities will in general enrich and expand people's lives more than another beer (in addition to the economic effects). Or are you one of those who is against all research and thinks we should just live like our grandfathers used to? ------------------------------ Date: Saturday, 24 March 1984 02:15:50 EST From: Hans.Moravec@cmu-ri-rover.arpa To: space@mit-mc.arpa, arms-d@mit-mc.arpa Subject: High DMZ Message-ID: <1984.3.24.7.14.33.Hans.Moravec@cmu-ri-rover.arpa> a281 2046 22 Mar 84 AM-Space Bill,320 Bill Seeks Talks on Banning Space Weapons WASHINGTON (AP) - Congress has been asked again to push the Reagan administration to try to negotiate a U.S.-Soviet ban on all weapons in space. The request came in a resolution co-sponsored in the House this week by nine congressmen, seeking a comprehensive ban on all space-based weapons and a separate moratorium on the testing and production of anti-satellite weapons. The resolutions, similar to measures sponsored earlier in the Senate, come a year after President Reagan urged a major scientific effort to develop a futuristic defensive shield that would protect the United States against attack by Soviet nuclear missiles. The proposal has been criticized by some scientific and arms-control groups, who say it is impossible to achieve and attempts to realize the goal might only spur the Soviets into a pre-emptive attack. The resolutions, introduced Wednesday, were sponsored by Rep. Norman Dicks, D-Wash.; Albert Gore, Jr., D-Tenn; Les Aspin, D-Wis.; Matthew McHugh, D-N.Y.; Vic Fazio, D-Calif.; Joel Pritchard, R-Wash.; Thomas S. Foley, D-Wash.; Steny Hoyer, D-Md. and Lawrence Coughlin, R-Pa. Meanwhile, backers of a space-based defensive system known as High Frontier released a poll Thursday that said 82 percent of 1,010 Californians questioned approve of a system of satellites to defend the United States from attack. High Frontier proposes to deploy 432 satellites, each armed with 40 to 50 missiles that would be capable of shooting down Soviet weapons. It could be deployed with existing technology within five to six years at a cost of $30 billion, retired Lt. Gen. Daniel Graham told a news conference. Nuclear weapons are banned from space by a treaty signed by the United States and the Soviet Union. But there are no new negotiations under way to limit future weapons systems and administration officials have recently told Congress that any such pacts would be difficult to verify. ap-ny-03-22 2346EDT *************** ------------------------------ Date: 20 Mar 84 9:36:36-PST (Tue) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: hplabs!sdcrdcf!trwrb!trwspp!brahms @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Fifth Shuttle [Go, ahead, make my day....] Taken from L.A. Times Business section (Tuesday, Mar 20) INDUSTRIALIST ROCKWELL'S FIRM TO OPEN TALKS ON SPACE SHUTTLE PURCHASE In what would be an unprecedented move to commercialize space travel, industrialist Willard F. Rockwell Jr. said Monday that his Cyprus Corp. has agreed with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration to open discussions to buy a new space shuttle vehicle. So far, no private corporation has ever successfully owned and operated a manned space system, although several commercial efforts are under way to develop less complex unmanned launch systems. Cyprus would use the shuttle as a private launch service for communications satellites, Rockwell said. BOOST FOR INDUSTRY Whether Rockwell's firm succeeds is likely to depend in large part on whether he can arrange financing for such a purchase. At a cost of "about $2 billion," the purchase of a space shuttle orbiter would certainly require the resources of several of Wall Street's largest investment-banking firms, Rockwell said. ..... The only other proposal to buy a shuttle came in 1982 from a small company formed to capitalize on commercial development of space. Its offer, however, never got past the talking stage and the complany has since gone out of business. ..... In a telephone interview, Rockwell played down the various risks involved in such an enormous and unique undertaking, including a lack of demand for a private shuttle or a crash that would destroy the vehicle. "The risks aren't all that great," he insisted. "We can do a lot with insurance. We would be going to the biggest insurance people in the world." Rockwell said the growing demand for launching private communications satellites cannot be met by the existing NASA fleet of shuttles. The government currently owns three shuttles and is scheduled to take delivery of the fourth shuttle latter this year. Typically, the government charges the owners of satellites a fee for launching them with the shuttle. GENERAL GUIDELINES OUTLINED Although he emphasized that the detailed economics of the investment have yet to be worked out, Rockwell said he would like to charge "whatever the traffic would bear" in launching satellites. But in practice, he said he would be limited to about $100 million for a payload taking the full cargo bay. NASA charges $75 million, he said. The NASA letter to Cyprus outlines several general guidelines that it would follow in negotiation any agreement for a sale, including NASA's right to schedule launches, the priority of safety and a pricing policy that would not drive up launching costs to customers. NASA said in the letter that it does not reserve exclusivity to Cyprus, meaning that it stands ready to sell other space shuttles. ----------EOA---------- -- Brad Brahms usenet: {decvax,ucbvax}!trwrb!trwspp!brahms arpa: Brahms@USC-ECLC ------------------------------ Date: 21 Mar 84 7:34:19-PST (Wed) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: ihnp4!houxm!hogpc!houxe!drutx!drufl!cwh @ Ucb-Vax Subject: How to solve budget problem RE: Erik Fair's article Congrats, Erik. As usual, the most intelligent, imaginative, and courageous solutions have come - not from the legislative lampreys in Washington or from the sadly deluded types like George Bush - but from the science fiction writers and the technical cadre of our country. There WAS no drug problem in this country until the legislature, in its infinite stupidity, made the stuff illegal, and created the economic incentive for organized crime to import it. Perhaps all we can do is contribute to efforts like the Amateur Space Telescope and hope that industry will decide that it can make enough *profit* from STS related technologies to push NASA on its way. Ad Astra - Carl Hoffmeyer WB2YHE drufl!cwh ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 25-Mar-84 0303 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #150 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts at MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 150 Today's Topics: Discovery -- June 4 launch??? Re: How to Solve NASA's budget problems Democratic Candidates High DMZ / Moon Treaty 2? space world Laser Fusion Rocket Paper june 4 shuttle launch??? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 21 Mar 84 17:15:24-PST (Wed) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: ihnp4!houxm!hogpc!houti!ariel!vax135!cornell!tesla!elias @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Discovery -- June 4 launch??? [] Could someone post the status of the june 4 launch?????????????? ------------------------------ Date: 21 Mar 84 7:47:35-PST (Wed) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: ihnp4!houxm!hogpc!houti!ariel!vax135!floyd!whuxle!spuxll!abnjh!u1100a!pyuxn!pyuxww!pyuxa!wetcw @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: How to Solve NASA's budget problems In-Reply-To: Article <375@dual.UUCP> }} Without getting into the moral and health questions involved in putting the government into the drug business, there are two problems. 1. If the government got into the business, making drugs legal and available would bring the street price down and, therefore, generate much less revenue to run NASA. 2. If the government kept the street price at the current levels, the crime that now takes place to pay for drugs would remain high, thus generating a need to use the revenues to deter crime. It won't work. Why don't we all, every man jack and woman jane and kid little just send $10.00 to NASA. Let's see now, there are around 210 million of us out here. Ten bucks times 210 million would get them over 2 billion to work with. Next year, we could pick another favorite agency and do the same thing. There must be a way to work this out so we don't have to pay so much in Federal taxes, Hmmm. T. C. Wheeler ------------------------------ Date: 24 Mar 1984 12:45:52-EST From: Scott.Safier at CMU-CS-CAD Subject: Democratic Candidates I called the Hart campaign to find out his position on the space program, but his Pittsburgh Headquarters didn't have any information. Mondale hasn't opened headquarters hear yet, so I can't find out his current position. Does anyone know of Hart's voting record in the Senate when it comes to NASA. this should give a good indication of how he stands. Scott ------------------------------ Date: 24 March 1984 17:58-EST From: Robert Elton Maas Subject: High DMZ / Moon Treaty 2? To: Hans.Moravec @ CMU-RI-ROVER cc: SPACE @ MIT-MC, ARMS-D @ MIT-MC WASHINGTON (AP) - Congress has been asked again to push the Reagan administration to try to negotiate a U.S.-Soviet ban on all weapons in space. Any projectile traveling at 17,000 MPH striking any object in a significantly different orbit will pretty near destroy it. Thus unless all satellites are in the same orbit in the same direction, each is a potential weapon against the others. Is this going to be another "Moon Treaty", effectively preventing any use of space whatsoever because of careless wording? I can see the headlines, LANDSAT ordered pulled down because of danger to other satellites due to polar orbit of LANDSAT. ------------------------------ Date: 24 March 1984 17:51-EST From: Robert Elton Maas Subject: space world To: SPACE @ MIT-MC I haven't been to the library much lately to keep up on Space World, but I was there yesterday and looked thru the March issue. It had a description of the upcoming STS flight in April, with an impressive listing of the different materials experiments all in one satellite they'll launch this time and recover a year later for study. It seemed like about 40 different experiments on exposure to space of various materials including polymers and polished surfaces and and and ...... Too bad I was in a hurry to catch a bus and couldn't jot down some tidbits to pass on here. Check your library. It isn't glossy, and it has some errors, but it has a wealth of info about recent&upcoming space flights (STS, USSR, ESA). ------------------------------ Return-Path: Date: 23 Mar 1984 12:45-PST From: dietz%USC-CSE@USC-ECL.ARPA To: Lars.Ericson@CMU-CS-A.ARPA Subject: Laser Fusion Rocket Paper Resent-To: space@MIT-MC, arms-d@MIT-MC Resent-From: Lars.Ericson@CMU-CS-A Resent-Date: 24 Mar 84 2030 EST (Saturday) A pointer to the conference proceedings containing an unclassified paper on the fusion rocket is in Tom Heppenheimer's new book "The Manmade Sun". The book is about fusion; I'm sure your fusion friends at Courant have read or soon will read this book. See OMNI magazine, October 1983, page 78 for an artists conception of Robert Hyde's fusion rocket. The Omni article says he presented a paper on fusion rockets at the International Astronautical Federation's annual convention in Budapest last year, so the paper will probably be appearing in Acta Astronautica soon. Hyde and friends at Livermore are the ones who ran the LASNEX implosion simulation program on BIS's Daedalus design, and discovered the pellets either wouldn't ignite or would melt the engine. Presumably Hyde's rocket has been more thoroughly simulated. ------------------------------ Date: 22 Mar 84 12:17:00-PST (Thu) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: ihnp4!houxm!hogpc!houti!ariel!vax135!cornell!tesla!elias @ Ucb-Vax Subject: june 4 shuttle launch??? [?] is Discovery's june 4 launch still on???? could someone who knows please mail or post the answer? thanks in advance. ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 26-Mar-84 0413 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #151 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts at MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 151 Today's Topics: Reply to Wilkins ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 25 Mar 1984 12:08-PST From: dietz%USC-CSE@USC-ECL.ARPA To: space@MIT-MC.ARPA Subject: Reply to Wilkins Do I think giving money to winos is a good idea? No. My point was simply this: You seem to believe that ALL of that 7 to 14 times return on investment in NASA has come back in the form of new technologies. I hope I demonstrated that this is absurd; a best a very small fraction of the investment comes back in the form of spinoffs. The space program CANNOT therefore be justified by pointing to unintended technological benefits. This is not suprising. After all, building moon rockets seems like an EXTREMELY inefficient way to do basic research. If you want new plastics, materials, glues, etc., why not just look for them and chuck the space program? If most of that 7-14 times return was not in the form of new technology it must have been in the form of economic activity generated directly by NASA spending. The wino spending example was merely meant to show that the argument for NASA spending from multiplied economic activity is also absurd, since spending on NASA -- IN REGARDS TO DIRECTLY GENERATED ECONOMIC ACTIVITY -- is equivalent to wino spending (which is clearly not productive). My message was not intended to advocate anything, merely to point out that certain arguments for the space program are flawed. ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 28-Mar-84 0304 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #152 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 152 Today's Topics: Re: SPACE Digest V4 #151 (Reply to Wilkins) NASA's Future Concern over wear on shuttles' engines. Space salvage rights? - (nf) Re: How to Solve NASA's budget problems Re: IMAX/OMNIMAX camera Re: Space Station is Inevitable Winos again... Re: Shuttle Laser Disc Re: How to Solve NASA's budget problems Re: Discovery -- June 4 launch??? Space Business Discovery launch date Space Station Poll Von Braun on shuttle Re: Shuttle on IMAX and for real Re: IMAX/OMNIMAX camera NASA Lottery ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 26 Mar 1984 10:02-PST Subject: Re: SPACE Digest V4 #151 (Reply to Wilkins) From: Craig E. Ward To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC Message-ID: <[USC-ISIF.ARPA]26-Mar-84 10:02:11.WARD> Talk about flawed arguments! Do you think that new plastics, materials, glues, etc. come out of thin air? No! Have you ever heard the saying "Necessity is the mother of invention", i.e., things do not get done until somebody wants them. By way of illustration we could say that we want to do X. After we have decided this we must ask ourselves what is needed to do X. The answer is Y. It is not at all clear that we could come up with Y without first having X. An example of this in the space program is: "We want to go to the moon. What do we need to do this? Well, new rockets, fuels, plastics, materials, glues, etc." I repeat, there is no reason to believe that without the space program the spin-offs would have occurred anyway. You are also quite wrong in comparing giving money to winos to spending money on the space program. Surely you do not suggest that giving money to winos will generate as much economic activity as the space program? That is stupid. The tractions between wino and liquor store are not going to have the same effect as the interactions between an engineer and a technical problem. The wino/store interaction is not likely to generate anything new, it merely supports current economic activity; however, the engineer/problem can, in addition to supporting current forms, produce new areas of economic growth. I submit that the 7 to 14x return is underestimated because the new technologies will be around as long as there are people. Perhaps it is a good figure for the short term, but for the long haul, it is very low. ------------------------------ Date: 26 Mar 1984 12:36:31 PST From: METH@USC-ISI.ARPA Subject: NASA's Future To: SPACE@MIT-MC.ARPA cc: METH@USC-ISI.ARPA FROM AVEATION LEAK, MARCH 26, 1984, P. 15: NASA Administrator James M. Beggs, speaking at the US Naval Academy last week, said he believes the agency's future could include a manned space station in lunar orbit within about 20 years and a manned colony on the Moon's surface by about 2010. Beggs also predicted that by about 2030 an initial station on the surface of Mars could be under construction, and by 2060 a manned colony on Mars would be "healthy and growing." ------------------------------ Date: 26 Mar 84 1454 PST From: Ross Finlayson Subject: Concern over wear on shuttles' engines. To: space@MIT-MC.ARPA PM-Shuttle Engines,370 Report: Spaceplane's Main Engines Fast Wearing Out MIAMI (AP) - The main engines thrusting the space shuttle into orbit perform well but are wearing out so fast and require so many repairs that they may have to be completely redesigned, a published report says. Senior engineers from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration say engine wear has become a severe and chronic problem, with repairs required after almost every flight, The Miami Herald reported Sunday. ''The engines have performed successfully every time they have flown, but we are just not getting the life out of them that we had hoped for,'' Walter Dankhoff, director of the main-engine program for the space agency, told the newspaper. In the extreme case, the re-engineering process could take up to 10 years and cost as much as $1 billion. The main engines, built by the Rocketdyne division of Rockwell International, were once expected to fly 55 missions without an overhaul. Dankoff said NASA officials are confident that when the space shuttle Challenger takes off on April 6, its three $30 million main engines will function flawlessly during the spacecraft's 8 1/2 minutes of powered flight. NASA officials also said that replacement of two key hydraulic power units on Challenger's solid-fuel boosters won't delay the April flight. NASA spokesman Jim Ball said Friday it was feared the hydraulic power units might allow fuel lines to crack and leak, sparking a fire like the one that broke out in a rear compartment of Columbia during the closing moments of the ninth shuttle mission last year. After 10 successful launches in the 3-year-old space shuttle program, NASA says it is satisfied with the way the engines perform in flight. Still, after every successful mission in the past three years, there has been some repair work on the engines. Rocketdyne officials have refused to discuss the shuttle's engine problems or efforts to improve engine life. In a prepared statement, however, company officials acknowledged that some ''areas of the engine have been identified in which maintenance or parts replacement are required to assure the reliability of the space shuttle.'' ap-ny-03-26 1246EDT ------------------------------ Date: 16 Feb 84 4:29:37-PST (Thu) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: ihnp4!stolaf!umn-cs!minn-ua!sew @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Space salvage rights? - (nf) When do the various failed satellites become candidates for salvage by whoever can grab them? ------------------------------ Date: 23 Mar 84 11:40:39-PST (Fri) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: sun!qubix!lab @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: How to Solve NASA's budget problems In-Reply-To: Article <375@dual.UUCP> <640@pyuxa.UUCP> Further, the price of drugs is controlled by exactly one thing - supply and demand. If people weren't willing to pay the high prices, the price would come down (and organized crime would look for greener pastures). The question is why there are so many who feel the need to be part of the demand. I can think of a lot of better ways to spend my hard-earned cash. -- The Ice Floe of the Q-Bick {ucbvax,ihnp4}!{decwrl,amd70}!qubix!lab decwrl!qubix!lab@Berkeley.ARPA ------------------------------ Date: 24 Mar 84 17:33:32-PST (Sat) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: hplabs!intelca!proper!callan!geoff @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: IMAX/OMNIMAX camera In-Reply-To: Article <2261@watcgl.UUCP> Dave Martindale says: > To show a 1-hour film they would either have > to modify the supply and takeup reel transport, or have an intermission > while reels were changed. Why can't they do it the way a regular movie theater does it? A standard reel of 35-mm film lasts about 20 minutes. Each reel begins with a short section that duplicates the end of the previous reel. A simple method allows the projectionist to start the second projector in sync with the end of the first reel; she then simply presses a button and voila! a shutter falls in front of projector 1 and is raised from in front of projector 2. At the same time, sound tracks are also switched. Is it the extremely high cost of the IMAX projectors that prevents this method from being used? Or must they be perfectly aligned with the screen, so that it is impossible to have two side-by-side? ------------------------------ Date: 25 Mar 84 10:55:15-PST (Sun) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: hplabs!hao!kpno!astrovax!ks @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: Space Station is Inevitable In-Reply-To: Article <715@seismo.UUCP> I find it unbelievable (as you suggest) that Werner von Braun would compare the space shuttle's contribution to science to "an elephant in a lifeboat." How about citing some sources (and more detailed elaboration) for this alleged statement? ------------------------------ Date: 27 Mar 1984 13:13:53-EST From: Dale.Amon at CMU-RI-FAS Subject: Winos again... Regardless of whether there exist more efficient ways of utilizing money as far as maximizing the multiplier effect, I would point out that NASA is the only major government agency for which this holds true. It does not hold for either the DOD or for welfare. Both suck huge dollar values from the economy and put next to nothing of value back. (If DOD put up a BMD, I might change my mind about them a little bit) At least when I see some of my hard earned money going into NASA, I know that some REAL good is coming out of it. NASA developes and publicly discloses whole new technologies. Not to mention which they have opened the door. Personally I'd much rather see entrepreneurs take over as soon as possible, but until that time, NASA is the only government agency that I can stomach. NASA people are even FRIENDLY to people who call in. If I have too be taxed, THESE are the people I would choose to spend my money. If I weren't taxed, I'd donate it to them anyway! ------------------------------ Date: 20 Feb 84 16:58:59-PST (Mon) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: sun!gnu @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: Shuttle Laser Disc In-Reply-To: Article <915@inuxc.UUCP> It would be appreciated when posting announcements of commercially available neat things, if you'd give the price, or at least the order of magnatude, or the phone number we could call to find out. ------------------------------ Date: 24 Mar 84 9:34:05-PST (Sat) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: decvax!linus!utzoo!dciem!mmt @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: How to Solve NASA's budget problems In-Reply-To: Article <640@pyuxa.UUCP> ============= ... Why don't we all, every man jack and woman jane and kid little just send $10.00 to NASA. Let's see now, there are around 210 million of us out here. Ten bucks times 210 million would get them over 2 billion to work with. Next year, we could pick another favorite agency and do the same thing. There must be a way to work this out so we don't have to pay so much in Federal taxes, Hmmm. T. C. Wheeler ============= In Canada, there is a tax deduction for "Gifts to Canada or to a Province". Don't you have the same? -- Martin Taylor {allegra,linus,ihnp4,uw-beaver,floyd,ubc-vision}!utzoo!dciem!mmt ------------------------------ Date: 25 Mar 84 11:02:56-PST (Sun) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: hplabs!hao!kpno!astrovax!ks @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: Discovery -- June 4 launch??? In-Reply-To: Article <328@tesla.UUCP> As can be gleaned from reading the past few issues of Aviation Week & Space Technology, the first launch of the Discovery (41-D) has been put off until June 19. The reason for this is given as damage to the Challenger's left OMS pod thermal insulation during the re-entry of STS-10 (41-B), which required substituting one of the Discovery's in order to launch STS-11 (41-C) this April 6. Some APU cannibalism on the Discovery was also made; a main engine as well. June 19 is described as a "soft" launch date, meaning a launch could be made earlier. However, NASA will not need to speed this launch along because of DOD's cancellation of their (previuously scheduled) July 14 flight. Anyhow, June 4 seems to be out. Stay tuned to Av Week (available at many libraries) for the latest. ------------------------------ Date: Wednesday, 28 March 1984 02:03:17 EST From: Hans.Moravec@cmu-ri-rover.arpa To: space@mit-mc.arpa Subject: Space Business Message-ID: <1984.3.28.7.2.39.Hans.Moravec@cmu-ri-rover.arpa> a266 1819 26 Mar 84 AM-Space Business,310 Government To Encourage Private Investment In Space By HOWARD BENEDICT AP Aerospace Writer WASHINGTON (AP) - The federal government will encourage private investment in space by offering tax incentives and reducing the technical and financial risks involved, the head of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration said Monday. ''We want your investments to go forward,'' James M. Beggs told representatives of several firms attending a space business conference. ''And we know that you may find it difficult to go it alone. That is why we will reduce those risks that might inhibit business from going into orbit.'' He said the White House ''has some tax incentive plans to encourage buisness in space ... For our part, NASA will establish a high-level office to serve as a focal point for our activities in stimulating space commerce.'' Beggs said the agency will support research aimed at commercial applications, permit access to NASA experiment facilities and schedule flight opportunities on space shuttle missions. ''We will continue to offer reduced-rate space transportation for high technology endeavors and plan to help integrate commercial equipment with the shuttle,'' Beggs said. ''We also will provide seed money to stimulate commercial space ventures, and in some cases, we will purchase commercial space products and services.'' Industry is interested initially in using weightless space for the manufacture of pure pharmaceuticals, exotic metals and purer optical fibers that cannot be made in Earth's gravity. McDonnell Douglas Corp. and Johnson & Johnson Pharmaceuticals jointly have sent four drug-making experiments into orbit aboard the shuttle. The results have been so encouraging that NASA is flying a McDonnell Douglas engineer on a shuttle flight in June to carry the experiment another step forward. Beggs noted that President Reagan placed commercial activity high on the agenda when he called in January for development of a permanent manned space station. ap-ny-03-26 2119EDT *************** ------------------------------ Date: 25 Mar 84 10:12:48-PST (Sun) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: decvax!ittvax!dcdwest!sdcsvax!sdcattb!me141 @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Discovery launch date Aviation Week and Space Technology for March 19 reports June 19 as the current launch date for Discovery. It is said to be "soft" and could be advanced if the installation of the OMS pod goes smoothly. A. Greene ------------------------------ Date: 25 Mar 84 12:55:00-PST (Sun) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: harpo!ulysses!allegra!alice!rabbit!rbc @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Space Station Poll This is a poll to estimate the total view of this newsgroup on the impending benifits/threats of the proposed space station. Anyone wishing to partake in this poll, respond by mail to voice your opinion. When the responses seem to be dwindling, I will tally the responses and post the views on the newsgroup. Thank You.........rabbit!rbc ------------------------------ Date: 25 Mar 84 19:32:50-PST (Sun) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: hplabs!hao!seismo!flinn @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Von Braun on shuttle Somebody doubted that von Braun had ever likened the shuttle to an elephant in a lifeboat ("... alleged statement ..."). When I went to NASA Headquarters in 1975 it was already common knowledge there. I doubt that von Braun or anyone else ever wrote it down. ------------------------------ Date: 15 Mar 84 12:33:28-PST (Thu) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: hplabs!intelca!t4test!murray @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: Shuttle on IMAX and for real In-Reply-To: Article <1215@mhuxm.UUCP> To those of you on the west coast who would like to see 'Hail, Columbia', it plays at Marriotts Great America (an amusement park) in Santa Clara (south end of San Francisco bay, also known as Silicon Valley) during the summer. It is shown on a 70 ft high screen, and is well worth seeing. Murray at Intel @ t4test ------------------------------ Date: 26 Mar 84 4:47:53-PST (Mon) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: hplabs!hao!seismo!brl-vgr!ron @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: IMAX/OMNIMAX camera In-Reply-To: Article <2261@watcgl.UUCP> <128@callan.UUCP> It is both the high cost (all though this is probably just an excuse) and the fact that an IMAX projector, with it's reels is a big sucker. You just couldn't fit two of them anywhere near close to being on axis. The OMNIMAX at the Fleet Planetarium in San Diego barely fits as it is. The projector is threaded below the floor and hauled up into position by chains. The reels stay put, making a rather long run. The IMAX in the Air and Space Museum in D.C. has two 35/70mm projectors, one to each side of the IMAX projector. They're not really good because they have to be so far to the sides of the projection room because the IMAX projector takes up so much room. -Ron ------------------------------ Date: 26 Mar 84 6:24:51-PST (Mon) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: decvax!decwrl!rhea!dvinci!fisher @ Ucb-Vax Subject: NASA Lottery > One suggestion I have heard is for NASA to hold a semi-expensive > lottery for a seat on the shuttle... One problem I could see is the US Postal Service regulations prohibit lottery solicitation through the mail. (That is why everything that you DO see which uses the mail, but smacks of lottery, always says somewhere "No purchase required".) That means that NASA would have to set up some gigantic network of retail sales outlets. A lot of expense for a one-shot deal, and I suspect that a lot of states would be up in arms if NASA started doing it on a regular basis. Also, how many people, honestly, WANT a ride on the shuttle? I certainly do, but I know a lot of non-idiot, non-proxmirish people who support the space program, but would not want a ride. Burns uucp: ...allegra!decwrl!rhea!dvinci!fisher ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 29-Mar-84 0302 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #153 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 153 Today's Topics: Re: IMAX/OMNIMAX camera Re: space station killing ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 26 Mar 84 11:20:16-PST (Mon) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: harpo!ulysses!burl!clyde!watmath!watcgl!dmmartindale @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: IMAX/OMNIMAX camera In-Reply-To: Article <2261@watcgl.UUCP> <128@callan.UUCP>, <2846@brl-vgr.ARPA> The projectors are indeed enormous compared to normal film projectors. The mechanism which transports the film past the gate is a machined drum several feet in diameter. The supply and takeup reels are each about 3 feet in diameter, although they don't need to be located directly with the projector. And the magnetic sound film handling equipment, air compressor, water supply, and arc power supply all need to be located somewhere nearby. But I suspect the main reason that there aren't many (if any) two-projector setups is that the projectors cost about half a million dollars each. I did once see a demonstration that used two IMAX projectors, polarizing filters, and a half-silvered mirror to show a 3-D test film made by the National Film Board. The illusion of depth was amazing. I felt like I could reach out and touch the objects that were sitting there right in front of me. This demo was at the IMAX factory (near Toronto) and someone commented that it was even unusual for them to have two fully-assembled projectors sitting around not in the process of being shipped to someone. of the hemispheric screen to produce a proper image, so there simply ------------------------------ Date: 25 Mar 84 14:44:58-PST (Sun) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: hplabs!tektronix!orca!brucec @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: space station killing In-Reply-To: Article <152@hocse.UUCP>, <3392@lanl-a.UUCP> <3646@utzoo.UUCP>, <709@orca.UUCP> <2779@fortune.UUCP> -------- >> The true Bedouin never poisons his neighbor's well, >> no matter how he feels about the creep. >> Very true, Lance, but somehow I don't see the combatants in an orbital combat as Bedouins. Note that neither the U.S. nor the USSR seems very concerned about the effect on central Europe of a major tank/tactical nuclear battle. And not too many people in the government or the military listened to the protests against Operations Argus and Starfish (they detonated nuclear bombs on LEO to see the effect on the ionosphere) or Operation Haystack (this one dumped a few kilos of metal needles into orbit to see if they would reflect radio waves). The moral seems to be that those who don't live there don't care what their actions do to the habitability or usability of a place. Bruce Cohen UUCP: ...!tektronix!orca!brucec CSNET: orca!brucec@tektronix ARPA: orca!brucec.tektronix@rand-relay USMail: M/S 61-183 Tektronix, Inc. P.O. Box 1000 Wilsonville, OR 97070 ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 30-Mar-84 0302 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #154 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 154 Today's Topics: Spinoffs -- fact or fiction? That rusty old shuttle Re: space station killing Space Station Killing Re: space station killing ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 29 Mar 1984 8:24-PST From: dietz%USC-CSE@USC-ECL.ARPA To: ward@USC-ISIF.ARPA Cc: space@MIT-MC.ARPA Subject: Spinoffs -- fact or fiction? Talk about flawed arguments! Do you think that new plastics, materials, glues, etc. come out of thin air? No! Have you ever heard the saying "Necessity is the mother of invention", i.e., things do not get done until somebody wants them. Of course I don't believe that new plastics, materials, glues, etc. come out of thin air. What I do believe is that a space program is a stupid way to get these spinoffs. Platitudes aside, do you have any evidence that the Apollo program produced 7 x 60 billion dollars (1984) (or indeed, any significant fraction of $60 billion) in spinoffs? Is there any reason to believe that these new materials would have been discovered without the space program? Of course there is. People have been discovering things on their own for thousands of years. Do you believe that government programs are the source of all knowledge, and that work done at NASA is somehow better at producing new technologies than work done in the private sector? Even if you do, wouldn't you think that a government program with the purpose of developing new materials would be far more efficient than NASA at doing so? As an example, look at the Japanese effort in high temperature ceramics. I fully expect most Japanese automobile engines to be made from these ceramics soon and will operate at higher temperatures (up to 2300 F) with greatly increased thermodynamic efficiency. The US auto industry will have to buy Japanese engines or die. Let's get some hard facts into this argument. Will someone document that claim of 7-14x payback from the space program? Also, could someone document that actual value of spinoffs? ------------------------------ Date: 29 Mar 1984 9:24-PST From: dietz%USC-CSE@USC-ECL.ARPA To: space@MIT-MC.ARPA Subject: That rusty old shuttle NASA has discovered corrosion problems during shuttle flights. You'd think that, in orbit, there'd be no corrosion in the vacuum. Unfortunately, the shuttle orbits in a region occupied by a very thin gas of atomic oxygen, which is very reactive. Since the shuttle is flying through the gas so fast, it is estimated that an atom on the shuttle's surface is hit by an oxygen atom once every second. Plastics have been found to deteriorate rapidly in this environment. Erosion rates of 1/2000 of a inch per day have been found. The atomic oxygen also attacks the binder in paints; NASA has noticed the paint on the inside of the cargo bay coming off after each flight. ------------------------------ Date: 26 Mar 84 13:56:37-PST (Mon) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: harpo!ulysses!burl!clyde!watmath!utzoo!kcarroll @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: space station killing In-Reply-To: Article <152@hocse.UUCP>, <3392@lanl-a.UUCP> <3646@utzoo.UUCP>, <709@orca.UUCP> * With reference to how easy it is to kill a space station, Ben Bova once wrote an amusing short story about how easy it'd be to terrorize a lunar colony. The setting: an American lunar settlement, which is near its Russian counterpart; both of them are armed with light artillery. The plot: tensions had reached a high level on the moon; the American and Russian bases finally started shooting at each other. The barrage only lasted a day; they both stopped after they figured out what effect their projectiles were having. Tou see, both sides had been firing high-velocity rounds, most of which missed the intended target. The rounds had enough velocity to go into orbit around the moon; after one orbit, the American's barrage had circled the satellite, and blew holes in the American base. Similarly with the Russians. Both sides soon realized that their own fire was endangering them more than the other side's, since the laws of orbital mechanics assured that a bullet fired with elliptical-orbit velocity would eventually come back to its launch site, whereas the Russian marksmen only got through >some< of the time. The story takes place several years after the short battle; the American base commander is explaining to a congressional budget investigator (or some such official) just why they need yet >another< high- powered computer at the base: to calculate the ever-changing orbits of the years-old volleys, so they'l know when to... ...DUCK!!! -Kieran A. Carroll ...decvax!utzoo!kcarroll ------------------------------ Date: 29 Mar 84 13:03 PST (Thursday) From: DBraunstein.ES@Xerox.ARPA Subject:Space Station Killing Re: SPACE Digest V4 #153 In-reply-to: OTA@S1-A.ARPA's message of 29 Mar 84 03:02 PST To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC.ARPA cc: DBraunstein.ES@Xerox.ARPA '...protests against Operations Argus and Starfish (they detonated nuclear bombs on LEO to see the effect on the ionosphere...' I've never heard of any nuclear tests that were conducted in earth orbit, but I guess they probably occured before 1963 (year of test ban treaty). I would be interested in obtaining more information on these two tests you mention, especially when they occurred. Further note on nuclear weapons in space, in addition to not caring about how one's actions affect the hability and usability space, military planners also seem to not care about previous treaty commitment. I remember reading an article in the Los Angeles times about two years ago on space weapons. It was an interview with a defense department research scientist who claimed with the development of space weapons that required the use of nuclear detonators (i.e. x-ray lasers,etc) the test ban treaty would not be violated because such treaties are suspended in times of war. This information may be slightly old, but as one may read in past issues of Aviation Week (Aviation Leak, if you prefer), space defense plans include the development of x-ray "battle-stations". With this attitude toward past agreements, adopted by both sides, it will be long time before we see any agreement aimed at limiting or banning space weapons. ------------------------------ Date: 27 Mar 84 20:16:13-PST (Tue) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: hplabs!ames-lm!al @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: space station killing In-Reply-To: Article <3683@utzoo.UUCP> While it may be easy to kludge up a space weapon, such weapons should be easier to counter and less deadly than those developed with gigabucks. Also, a minor point. The vast majority of all satellites go in more or less the same direction. The reason is straightforward. If you launch East you get up to 1000 miles/hour free velocity from the Earth's rotation. If you launch west you have to overcome up to 1000 miles/hour before you get any forward motion at all. This blurb is in response to someone who thought satellites go every which way and could easily be set into head on collisions. ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 31-Mar-84 0303 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #155 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 155 Today's Topics: Space World 3-D and Space Films Re: re: space station alert ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 27 Mar 84 7:11:37-PST (Tue) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: decvax!decwrl!rhea!dvinci!fisher @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Space World >From REM: >> "...see Space World in your local library for a wealth of info..." An even better way to get Space World is to join the National Space Institute. You get Space World monthly with a special insert for NSI members, along with mailings for shuttle launch tours, etc etc. I think membership is ~$20. NSI has been in business for a long time as such organizations go; it was founded by Werner von Braun. They classify as a tax-deductable organization (educational?). I highly recommend the group. The easiest way to join is to call Dial-A-Shuttle during the next mission (900-410-6272) and wait for an NSI "advertisement" which will give you a toll-free number to call. Burns Fisher (NSI Member Number 000160) ...allegra!decwrl!rhea!dvinci!fisher ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 30 Mar 1984 13:00:00 EST From: David M. Axler - MSCF Applications Mgr. Subject: 3-D and Space Films To: space%mit-mc.arpa@csnet-relay.arpa The best three-dimensional projection system I've seen yet is the one at the Kodak pavilion down at Epcot. It uses polarized light (viewers get sunglasses without hinges, to ensure that they won't be stolen...), and is *very* impressive. There isn't any 'true' space footage, but the special effects stuff included in the film suggests that this might well be the system to use. If you go to see this, by the way, also check out the Energy pavilion -- some excellent shuttle launch footage on a 180-degree wrap screen using three projectors. --Dave Axler ------------------------------ Date: 29 Mar 84 20:55:55-PST (Thu) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: pur-ee!uiucdcs!parsec!holt @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: re: space station alert "Earth has enough problems: why not solve them before making new ones in space?" Yours sadly, Dave Lukes (!ukc!qtlon!dave) Please Dave, This argument just won't do. If the human race waited to solve all of its problems on earth befor going into space, then we would NEVER go into space. In other words, we'll never solve all of our problems on earth. In fact, I would guess that new ones will spring up as fast as we solve the old ones. Let's spread out the human race a little. Then that one stupid mistake by one set of stupid politicians (which is sure to happen sooner or later on our beloved little planet) won't exterminate our species. As a matter of fact, it is highly likely that most of the people who do colonize space will possess "superior" genes. Thus, from an evolutionary standpoint, the "space people" of a couple of centuries in the future, will have improved a sector of the species. Ignoring genetic engineering for the sake of this discussion, Dave Holt Convex Computer Corp. {allegra,ihnp4,uiucdcs,ctvax}!parsec!holt ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 01-Apr-84 0303 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #156 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 156 Today's Topics: Lunar artillery Intersecting orbits NASA Lottery --> proxy&$10 election "In The Country Of The Blind, . . ." Re: space station killing / total SF nonsense Space Station Killing Nukes in space Re: Re: Shuttle Laser Disc ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Saturday, 31 March 1984 09:22:21 EST From: David.Smith@cmu-cs-ius.arpa To: harpo!ulysses!burl!clyde!watmath!utzoo!kcarroll@ucb-vax.arpa cc: space@mit-mc.arpa Subject: Lunar artillery Message-ID: <1984.3.31.14.14.44.David.Smith@cmu-cs-ius.arpa> That story about the Russians and Americans on the moon sounds a little far-fetched. I would assume that they would have done the targeting well enough to land the shells pretty close to the target. But if they fired a shell off at orbital velocity, any elevation in the firing angle would cause the orbit to intersect the ground. The shell would come back at the same velocity vector at which it had left, so it would have to come out of the ground. ------------------------------ Date: Saturday, 31 March 1984 10:10:03 EST From: David.Smith@cmu-cs-ius.arpa To: hplabs!ames-lm!al@ucb-vax.arpa cc: space@mit-mc.arpa Subject: Intersecting orbits Message-ID: <1984.3.31.14.24.9.David.Smith@cmu-cs-ius.arpa> Also, a minor point. The vast majority of all satellites go in more or less the same direction. The reason is straightforward. If you launch East you get up to 1000 miles/hour free velocity from the Earth's rotation. If you launch west you have to overcome up to 1000 miles/hour before you get any forward motion at all. This blurb is in response to someone who thought satellites go every which way and could easily be set into head on collisions. Perhaps most satellites are launched in more or less the same direction (eastward), but that doesn't mean they are travelling in more or less the same orbit. If you launch two satellites eastward from Cape Canaveral (28.5 degrees north latitude) twelve hours apart, their orbits will have a 57 degree difference in inclination. If each travels at 17,500 mph, then their closing speed is 16,700 mph. That should be enough to crack up a satellite. The fact is, satellites do go every which way. We launch satellites from 28.5 degrees north, the Soviets launch from around 55 degrees north, and we both launch into polar orbits. Maybe nobody launches straight west, but the US launches satellites south-southwest from Vandenberg. This, by the way, makes me skeptical about the claim that the space station would be useful as a base for satellite repair. David Smith ------------------------------ Date: 31 March 1984 20:26-EST From: Robert Elton Maas Subject: NASA Lottery --> proxy&$10 election To: decvax!decwrl!rhea!dvinci!fisher @ UCB-VAX cc: SPACE @ MIT-MC Instead of a lottery, how about a proxy election? You send in your $10 and say who you proxy your $10 to for shuttle ride. Then the votes are counted and the vote-getters are notified of who the main contenders are. Then anyone who received votes may proxy them further, until somebody has enough votes to pay for his/her ride. Money not used, i.e. surplus money the winner gets beyond his/her ride, and money anybody else gets, would continue to be accumulated, with new money coming in all the time, until another person gets enough votes (money) for a ride. By limiting each individual contribution to $10, this is made a popularity contest (who do you want to see in space, who in space would make you turn on the TV set and watch and tell your friends to wach and generate a lot of publicity and maybe even buy the sponsor's products and the book that gets written as a result of the exciting trip to space) instead of a money contest (what random capitalist pig or worse what rich son of a capitalist pig can waste all our time and effort and then complain he didn't enjoy the ride or make a mistake and get killed and thus sabotage the space program). ------------------------------ Date: 31 March 1984 21:04-EST From: Robert Elton Maas Subject: "In The Country Of The Blind, . . ." To: LLW @ S1-A cc: SPACE @ MIT-MC There are few complex systems of any type which work either perfectly or not at all--virtually everything's somewhere in between. - Lowell Wood That's exactly why I think now is not the time to actually build a BMD system, the 10% of warheads that get through the BMD to hit us will still destroy our society and government and way of life and maybe our ecology and species. Let the research continue, and discuss the pros and cons of various methods in upcoming years, but wait until we've reduced warheaddage by two orders of magnitude before we actually install BMD. ------------------------------ Date: 31 March 1984 21:45-EST From: Robert Elton Maas Subject: Re: space station killing / total SF nonsense To: harpo!ulysses!burl!clyde!watmath!utzoo!kcarroll @ UCB-VAX cc: SPACE @ MIT-MC PURE FICTION BASED ON GROSS MISUNDERSTANDING OF PHYSICS: The rounds had enough velocity to go into orbit around the moon; after one orbit, the American's barrage had circled the satellite, and blew holes in the American base. Similarly with the Russians. Both sides soon realized that their own fire was endangering them more than the other side's, since the laws of orbital mechanics assured that a bullet fired with elliptical-orbit velocity would eventually come back to its launch site, That's a nonsense "word argument", not a scientific argument. Sure we all know a projectile in elliptical orbit returns to its launch point (ignoring rotation of Moon), but unless the projectile is fired exactly parallel to the ground (or from a high point, somewhat near horizontal), the launch point isn't at the point nearest the center of the moon (perilune), so in order to reach launch point the projectile must pass THROUGH THE MOON during the part near perilune when its closer to the center of the moon than it was at launch. Since projectiles are normally fired at 45 degree inclination to achieve maximum horizontal motion for given thrust, it's extremely unlikely a significant fraction of projectiles would ever be fired close enough to horizontally. It's funny how many arguments sound nice when you quote nice-sounding well-reputed phrases and string them together into a pretty "argument" without thinking them through. An awful lot of science fiction is based on such mis-arguments, an awful lot!! (Let's see, an explosion generates thrust, so an explosion on the moon could send it speeding through space together with Moonbase Alpha, and at relativistic speeds it could travel the universe in a few hundred years of shiptime, so thus visit lots of exciting places in one TV season. Practice finding flaws in that SF plot, and in others. There are at least three MAJOR flaws, can you find them?) ------------------------------ Date: 31 March 1984 21:51-EST From: Robert Elton Maas Subject: Space Station Killing To: DBraunstein.ES @ PARC-MAXC cc: SPACE-ENTHUSIASTS @ MIT-MC From: DBraunstein.ES@Xerox.ARPA I've never heard of any nuclear tests that were conducted in earth orbit, but I guess they probably occured before 1963 (year of test ban treaty). I think the person who used "LEO" to describe the location of the H-bomb tests was using inappropriate terminology, since the weapons were sub-orbital lobs, not actually orbiting Earth. Perhaps they were in the same place that a LEO satellite might be, but LEO refers to a real orbit, i.e. a phase-space locale (position plus velocity), not just to a simple distance from Earth. The H-bomb test was just "up in space", not "in Low-Earth Orbit". I think you are correct, there never were any H-bomb tests from actual orbit. FROM:37'28N122'08W415-323-0720.PCNET (about 3 miles from Stanford) ------------------------------ Date: 31 Mar 1984 22:38:01-EST From: Dale.Amon at CMU-RI-FAS Subject: Nukes in space The tests in question occured sometime between 1960 and 1963, most likely in late 1962. They were launched from Johnston Island in the Pacific. If anyone feels like digging, there was a Life magazine pictorial about it around the time of occurence. Also, although most satellites do indeed orbit in the same clocksense, there is still a velocity vector difference due to angular differences in the orbital planes of up to 90 degrees. Although collisions are not terribly likely, they are a consideration. NORAD has each and every piece of garbage tagged and plugged into it's computers so that such occurences will not occur during the useful life of a new satellite. (The database includes a glove and a Hasselblad camera, if they haven't re-entered yet) ------------------------------ Date: 28 Mar 84 0:53:15-PST (Wed) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: pur-ee!uiucdcs!parsec!sheppard @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: Re: Shuttle Laser Disc I don't think it matters much anymore, but the Shuttle laser disk is selling in places like Videoland (at least here in Dallas) for $39.95. Their first stocking of them didn't last very long. Andy Sheppard Convex Computer Corporation ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 04-Apr-84 0305 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #157 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 157 Today's Topics: Intersecting orbits Lunar artillery Starstruck failure Re: Orbital Artillery Status of Galileo mission IMAX on 30 min 35mm reels Re: NASA's Future National Space Institute Re: Winos again... -- Why multiplier effect? Orbital plane change Re: SPACE Digest V4 #156 "bullets on moon" story Re: NASA's Future Re: Hyde's Laser Fusion Rocket ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 1 April 1984 07:48-EST From: Robert Elton Maas Subject: Intersecting orbits To: David.Smith @ CMU-CS-IUS cc: SPACE @ MIT-MC, hplabs!ames-lm!al @ UCB-VAX Date: Saturday, 31 March 1984 10:10:03 EST From: David.Smith@cmu-cs-ius.arpa [Satellite orbits go nearly every which way, even though most go generally in the easy direction of west-to-east.] This, by the way, makes me skeptical about the claim that the space station would be useful as a base for satellite repair. It takes more than a station, you also need a tug to bring the satellite out of its former orbit into rendezvous orbit with the station (and to put it back in proper orbit when done, although that can be done by a permanently-mounted second-stage rocket rather than with a true tug), an astronaut with backpack to despin the satellite, and a grappling arm to latch onto the satellite so it won't move away or rotate every time a tool applies force to it during repair. We've already demonstrated the backpack and Canada-arm, so now we need the station and tug. Note that it takes a lot less energy to tug an orbiting object around than to re-orbit it from ground, even if it's in a grossly different orbit, mostly because tugging can be done with a highly efficient ion rocket or solar sail whereas lifting from ground requires a high-impulse rocket or shuttle, which with present technology requires highly inefficient chemical rockets which require all their energy stored at liftoff rather than taken in from the Sun during maneuvering. Thus a space station is useful but only as one of the four main parts of the system, and until the tug is developed it really won't be directly useful for this task except where the orbit of the satellite so nearly matches the orbit of the station that the STS might be used as an interim tug. But I suspect by the time the station is up there we'll be close to having a tug too. ------------------------------ Date: 1 Apr 1984 09:48 PST (Sun) Message-ID: <[SRI-NIC].IAN. 1-Apr-84 09:48:06> From: Ian Macky To: Space@MIT-MC Subject: Lunar artillery I seem to remember that the projectiles the Americans and Russians were firing at each other were high-velocity rifle rounds, not some sort of heavy artillery, which is why they were fired parallel to the ground, and so were able to make it all the way around and sneak up from behind. ------------------------------ Date: 1 Apr 1984 18:28:45-EST From: Hank.Walker at CMU-CS-VLSI Subject: Starstruck failure Starstruck, the outfit in San Diego that wants to launch rockets as they float in the water, tried and failed with a test launch today. The launch was to have been to an altitude of a mile, to prove the concept of water launching (we already know you can launch rockets from underwater). The rocket developed a short circuit while sitting in the upright position prior to launch. Heavy swells ripped the rocket's cradle and crane off the back of the transport boat. ------------------------------ Date: 25 Feb 84 18:01:59-PST (Sat) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: decvax!linus!utzoo!henry @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: Orbital Artillery In-Reply-To: Article <16648@sri-arpa.UUCP>, <3562@utzoo.UUCP> Kieran asks: Has anyone else on the net, upon hearing O'Neill's idea for using mass-drivers throwing away tiny pellets of reaction mass ( say little buckets of lunar dirt) as a high-efficiency rocket-engine, had the thought, "Good Lord, who wants to fill the solar system up with billions more meteorites, especially around what will eventually be a crowded shipping region, the earth-moon region? Won'rt the probability of hulling your ship increase dramatically?" Actually, O'Neill thought of this. The first part of the answer is that there is so much natural debris around that it's hard for human activities to increase it much. The second part is that there are fairly easy ways to handle the problem, which should probably be used to prevent a problem developing in the long term. Specifically... The mass-driver's big virtue is that it can use most anything as reaction mass. So you can choose something that will be relatively inoffensive. Early on, the choice of propellant will be constrained by what's available, such as aluminum dust from ground-up shuttle external tanks. The problem can be minimized by spraying a static charge onto the dust as it leaves the mass-driver; this will make the dust particles disperse. Later, the propellant of choice is liquid oxygen extracted from lunar/asteroidal rock. The LOX simply boils off into vacuum after release, leaving no debris at all. -- Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology {allegra,ihnp4,linus,decvax}!utzoo!henry ------------------------------ Date: 01 Apr 84 2033 PST From: Ross Finlayson Subject: Status of Galileo mission To: space@MIT-MC.ARPA BC-JUPITER By JOHN NOBLE WILFORD c.1984 N.Y. Times News Service PASADENA, Calif. - The pieces are finally coming together in an ambitious project to explore Jupiter and its four major moons. After years of budgetary battles over the Galileo project, delays and equipment changes, officials of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory here say they believe they now have a launching date they can keep - May 1986. One piece, the spacecraft, is being assembled at the laboratory and prepared for rigorous ground tests, scheduled to begin in two months. The spacecraft is designed to orbit Jupiter 11 times over a 20-month period, weaving in and out of the paths of the Jovian moons and taking close-up photographs of at least one moon on each orbit. Another piece, a separate module called the Probe, was delivered to the laboratory in February and will be fitted into the main spacecraft. The module, built by the Hughes Aircraft Co. under the direction of the Ames Research Center in Mountain View, Calif., is designed to be deployed by the spacecraft for a parachute-assisted descent into Jupiter's dense atmosphere. The probe is expected to return data for an hour until high temperatures and pressures destroy it. Work on a third element of the project, a modified Centaur rocket, was also reported to be proceeding on schedule at the General Dynamics Co. in San Diego. The high-energy rocket, ordinarily used for launchings from the ground, is being adapted to boost the Galileo vehicles after they are deployed into an earth orbit by the space shuttle. Resorting to the Centaur, rather than the troubled Air Force inertial upper stage rocket, is one of the changes that has delayed the mission. John R. Casani, the Galileo project manager, said in an interview last week that ''everything looks good'' for getting the 5,600-pound spacecraft and its Centaur rocket ready for liftoff in May 1986. His optimism is in sharp contrast to the situation two years ago, when it appeared for a time the Reagan administration, in a move to reduce the civilian space budget, might cancel the Galileo project and wipe out the entire planetary exploration program. Twice before, launching plans were set back because the shuttle was not available or because of problems in developing a booster rocket. When the project was initiated in 1977, the goal was to launch the craft in 1982. A launching in 1986 would send the spacecraft into an orbit of Jupiter in August 1988. Two Pioneers and two Voyagers have flown by the Jovian system, but none have gone into orbit for a longer look. The $860 million mission promises to give scientists their first detailed, close-range view of the chemical composition and physical properties of the solar system's largest planet and its four prominent satellites, each of which appears to be a world unto itself. Scientists believe Jupiter is made of the original material from which stars form, largely unmodified by thermonuclear processes. Only two important questions about the mission remain, Casani said. Will engineering changes assure the spacecraft's sensitive electronics a safe ride through the hazardous Jovian radiation belts? Will the spacecraft be re-directed to inspect an asteroid on its voyage out between Mars and Jupiter? That the first question arose is a reflection of the Galileo spacecraft's technological sophistication. Further miniaturizing of the microscopic wiring on the silicon computer chips, which greatly increases the craft's data-processing capability, made the chips vulnerable to a phenomenon known as ''single-event upset.'' A single impact of cosmic rays or Jupiter radiation did not usually affect the larger computer chips used on earlier craft. Their size and greater electrical charge protected them. But a new analysis indicated that Jupiter's radiation, though low in energy, was enough to disrupt the smaller, lower-powered computer circuits. One zap might switch a critical circuit from off to on or on to off, thereby disrupting all data processing. About 50 chips are being redesigned with new wiring to be ''cosmic-ray safe,'' Casani said. The radiation shielding is being added by the Sandia Corp. of Albuquerque, N.M. If these corrections fail to solve the problem, he said, the entire microprocessing unit will have to be replaced. In neither case, he said, was the problem likely to jeopardize Galileo's launching schedule. The other question, whether Galileo should also attempt to fly past an asteroid, must be resolved before the end of this year, if there is to be time to develop computer instructions for such an encounter. Since the spacecraft must go through the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter anyway, it was determined that, with certain mid-course maneuvers, Galileo could fly close enough to obtain detailed pictures of one of the larger asteroids, the 120-mile-wide Amphitrite. The price to be paid would be a delay of three to four months in Galileo's arrival at Jupiter. Such a delay increases the mission's cost and the chances of something going wrong before reaching Jupiter. Dr. Torrence V. Johnson, the project scientist, said many planetary researchers were advocating that the space agency adopt a policy of including an asteroid rendezvous in all its missions to the outer planets. A decision is expected later this year. nyt-04-01-84 1824est ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 29 Mar 84 14:21 EST From: Steven Gutfreund To: space%s1-a.arpa@csnet-relay.arpa Subject: IMAX on 30 min 35mm reels One difficulty with putting IMAX on standard reels is that few people are using them anymore. Unionization of projectionists and the advent of multi-screen cinemas have pushed the operators into using new machines that have the entire 2 hour film on one 3 foot wide reel. As you can imagine, maintaining proper tension and making sure the winding occurs correctly is extremely difficult, and if not done right, extremely destructive. - Steven Gutfreund ------------------------------ Date: 30 Mar 84 9:12:29-PST (Fri) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: hplabs!hao!seismo!flinn @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: NASA's Future Al Globus speculates: >> Here I go out on a limb: Manned presence on the Moon, Mars, et >> al. will be a side show. The real action is in orbit. For once I agree with Al. Fabricating structures with metals mined and smelted on the spot on other planets is a pipe dream, and after the political demonstration of people walking around on Mars, there's not a great deal to be done on the surface of Mars or the Moon that can't be done much more inexpensively with unmanned landers. ------------------------------ Date: 30 Mar 84 11:16:28-PST (Fri) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: decvax!decwrl!rhea!dvinci!fisher @ Ucb-Vax Subject: National Space Institute If you don't want to wait for dial-a-shuttle as I suggested in an earlier note to join NSI, their phone number is 202-484-1111. USPS: NSI 600 Maryland Ave, SW West Wing, Suite 203 Washington, DC 20024 Burns ...allegra!decwrl!rhea!dvinci!fisher ------------------------------ Date: 02 Apr 84 10:22:33 PST (Mon) To: space@Mit-Mc, Dale.Amon@Cmu-Ri-Fas Subject: Re: Winos again... -- Why multiplier effect? In-reply-to: Your message in Space Digest of 27 Mar 1984 13:13:53-EST. From: Martin D. Katz [Dale.Amon@CMU-RI_FAS] Regardless of whether there exist more efficient ways of utilizing money as far as maximizing the multiplier effect, I would point out that NASA is the only major government agency for which this holds true. It does not hold for either the DOD or for welfare. ... (If DOD put up a BMD, I might change my mind about them a little bit) ... NASA developes and publicly discloses whole new technologies. ... I agree with the general sentiments, but the real question is not whether money given to NASA has a higher multiplier effect than other government agencies, but why. We can't expect to convince people that the multiplier effect is real and therefore NASA is a useful investment unless we give them a logical reason to believe it. What we need is an economic theory which people can rely on and believe. We must balance the effects on an economy of pumping in money: each dollar spent supports the merchant (who supports the merchants he shops at and so on) along with long term resources created (e.g. information), against long term resources used. For "welfare," each dollar creates very little in long term capital resources, almost all effects are a trade-off of short term resources for short term safety and the satisfaction which comes of fulfilling civic responsibility. There are long term resources generated in terms of what the person helped gives to our society which that person could not give to the society otherwise. I am deliberately ignoring the very real (and very important) humanitarian and ethical considerations involved. The argument for DoD is very similar to funds for welfare. The long term resources generated derive from the safety and continuity of our economic system. There is also a considerable long term contribution to the economy due to training. This, plus the normal 2-3 times multiplier due to support of merchants constitutes a strong economic argument for support of DoD. Unfortunately, the long term costs of lost time for recruits, propoganda, secrecy, public fear, training killers, raw materials which are needed to produce weaponry, etc. is quite large. The argument for NASA is quite different. NASA is a research organization, and exists for a different purpose. NASA fulfills the training and people support tasks at least as well per dollar as DoD (I don't know how to compare it to welfare). NASA also fulfills a considerable long term resource in terms of public safety (support of DoD in many of its endeavours). Although NASA uses a considerable quantity of raw materials, NASA repays in long term resources: information, propoganda, and (in the near future) support of industrial development. Even if the DoD developed a BMD system, it still would not change the nature of the DoD as it relates to the nation at large either pollitically or economically. ------------------------------ Date: Monday, 2 April 1984 13:41:55 EST From: David.Smith@cmu-cs-ius.arpa To: rem@mit-mc.arpa cc: space@mit-mc.arpa Subject: Orbital plane change Message-ID: <1984.4.2.18.8.37.David.Smith@cmu-cs-ius.arpa> My skepticism about using the space station for satellite repair was admittedly from a chemical rocket mindset. How old-fashioned of me not to think of ion rockets. (Previous discussions concluded that a solar sail is not useful below about 1000 miles.) Any low-thrust solution will take quite a while, since to be effective it has to be applied at or near the orbit crossovers. How about the following, for low orbit plane changes. This is based on an article I read in (I think) Astronautics and Aeronautics not too many months ago. Move the perigee to the crossing node, and brake off enough speed to drop it into the sensible (but still very thin) atmosphere. Use wing lift normal to the flight path to effect the plane change. This may take several passes. Once the plane is sufficiently changed, fire at apogee to raise the perigee. Of course, the drag at perigee will drop the apogee, unless thrusters fire during the maneuver. As I recall, they expected lift/drag to be about 4. So you get a major plane change for 1/4 the propellant that would have been required for a purely propulsive maneuver. A boon whether you use chemical or electric propulsion. David Smith P.S. Up with the winged space tug! ------------------------------ Date: 2 Apr 84 08:25 PST (Monday) From: DBraunstein.ES@Xerox.ARPA Subject: Re: SPACE Digest V4 #156 In-reply-to: OTA@S1-A.ARPA's message of 01 Apr 84 03:03 PST To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC.ARPA cc: DBraunstein.ES@Xerox.ARPA From: David.Smith@cmu-cs-ius.arpa ".......makes me skeptical about the claim that the space station would be useful as a base for satellite repair." If you read the late January edition of Aviation Week (or Leak), there is an article outlining the full NASA proposal for the space station or more accurately space operation centers. Included in the proposal is a funding request to develop a teleoperator to allow the remote retrieval of satellites in different orbits. Also you must remember that the present space station proposal is only a preliminary step, by the end of the next decade there will probably be one station at 57 degree inclinaton, and one in a polar orbit, thus allowing repair of a wider range of satellites, especially earth resources satellites. ------------------------------ Date: 2 Apr 1984 16:14:46-EST From: csin!cjh@CCA-UNIX To: space@mit-mc Subject: "bullets on moon" story The people who are criticizing this story apparently missed the statement that it's by Ben Bova, whose blanket enthusiasm for space may be questionable but whose physics is likely to be solid (he was a [physical scientist] before he was a writer). I also seem to recall that the objects being dodged were bullets, not large projectiles, so they could reasonably be presumed to have been fired level. (I recently discovered a 50's story which Bova may have been thinking of: some explorers on Mars find a town in which the natives check an elaborate chart before crossing the street, which turns out to be the path of a moon one of them dubs "Bottomos".) I also think it's dirty pool to call SPACE: 1999 ("marked down from 2001") a "science fiction story" for the purpose of damning science in SF. ------------------------------ Date: 30 Mar 84 18:25:35-PST (Fri) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: harpo!seismo!hao!ames-lm!al @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: NASA's Future Everyone seems very exited about manned bases on the Moon and Mars. That's all well and good but I suspect that once we get used to space stations and space colonies we will turn up our noses at living on uninhabitable planets. I mean, if you go to all the trouble to build a life support system, the least you want is permanent sunshine and control of gravity. Here I go out on a limb: Manned presence on the Moon, Mars, et. al. will be a side show. The real action is in orbit. ------------------------------ Date: 3 Apr 1984 14:09-PST From: dietz%USC-CSE@USC-ECL.ARPA To: space@MIT-MC.ARPA Subject: Re: Hyde's Laser Fusion Rocket Thanks to ota for sending me a copy of Roderick (NOT Robert) Hyde's paper. The paper makes these points: The Daedalus study claimed that D+He-3 is superior to DD or DT fuel because the reaction products are chared particles. Hyde argues that this isn't so, because (a) the reactions D+D -> He-3+n and D+D -> T+p (followed by D+T->n+He-4) will still occur, (b) in the highly compressed pellets used in inertial confinement fusion most of the high energy neutrons from D+T reactions will deposit their energy in the pellet before escaping, but (c) enough netrons escape in any case to require neutron shielding, even with D+He-3. Also, (d) at the higher temperatures needed for D+He-3 fusion, a significant amount of X-radiation from bremmstrahlung is generated. As a result, the Daedalus thrust chamber design won't work, because it intercepts many of the neutrons, gamma rays and X-rays, leading to unacceptable heat dissipation requirements. Also, the Daedalus thrust chamber won't direct the plasma nearly as well as advertized, leading to lower thrust. Hyde uses a single, well-shielded superconducting coil to form the magnetic nozzle. A lithium shield is used to generate tritium in flight to catalyze deuterium pellets. Some 4 GW of power is dissipated in the coil shield, which is carried away to the radiators by liquid lithium. Hyde proposes krypton fluoride lasers as drivers due to their high operated temperature (1000 degrees K) which reduces radiator mass. Total vehicle mass is 486 tons. Theoretical maximum exhaust velocity is about 8.7% c, but in practice lower because of energy lost in neutral particles, nozzle inefficiencies and because not all the pellet is fusion fuel. The exhaust velocity of the rocket can be adjusted by wrapping the pellets in extra nonfusionable mass. The rocket can take 1500 tons of payload to Mars in 22.2 days, to Jupiter in 93.6 days and to Pluto in just under a year. Maximum thrust is 3 million newtons. Hyde's rocket would make a fine asteroid tug, although it isn't optimized for this function. It could accelerate a 100,000 ton asteroid to 4 km/sec in 37 hours. By using asteroid mass for shielding, structural material and reaction mass, higher thrust should be possible. ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 05-Apr-84 0302 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #158 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 158 Today's Topics: Hyde's fusion rocket paper (II) Re: How to solve NASA's budget problems "the economic impact of nasa R&D spending" Lunar artillery [sic, more like rifles shooting] 41-C update Re: Reply to Wilkins Gary Hart's record Re: Reply to Wilkins - (nf) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 4 Apr 1984 7:44-PST From: dietz%USC-CSE@USC-ECL.ARPA To: space@MIT-MC.ARPA Subject: Hyde's fusion rocket paper (II) Forgot to add: the paper is UCRL-88857, "A Laser Fusion Rocket for Interplanetary Propulsion" by Roderick A. Hyde, available from Technical Information Department, Lawrence Livermore Laboratory, U. of California, Livermore, CA 94550. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 4 Apr 84 11:03:26 PST From: Rich Wales To: space@MIT-MC.ARPA Subject: Re: How to solve NASA's budget problems In-reply-to: Martin Taylor's message of Sat, 24 Mar 84 09:34:05 PST Martin -- In reply to your message: Date: 24 Mar 84 9:34:05-PST (Sat) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: decvax!linus!utzoo!dciem!mmt @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: How to Solve NASA's budget problems In-Reply-To: Article <640@pyuxa.UUCP> In Canada, there is a tax deduction for "Gifts to Canada or to a Province". Don't you have the same? According to the U.S. Federal tax return instruction booklet, you can contribute money to the government by mailing (along with your tax return and tax payment) a separate cheque made out to "Bureau of the Public Debt". Such a gift can be claimed as a deduction for Federal tax purposes, up to some limit (the total of all your contributions to all recipients combined cannot exceed 20% of your income, I believe). I suspect that most (if not all) states allow this same deduction for purposes of their own income taxes -- possibly with a different upper limit than 20%. I can't say for sure what the situation is nationwide because each state has its own tax laws. As far as I can tell, there is no way to earmark such a contribution as being specifically for NASA. And I don't know whether there is any other mechanism available for contributing directly to this or that fed- eral agency. (I suspect there is not.) -- Rich ------------------------------ Date: 4 Apr 1984 13:22-PST Sender: BILLW@SRI-KL Subject: "the economic impact of nasa R&D spending" From: William "Chops" Westfield To: space@MC Message-ID: <[SRI-KL] 4-Apr-84 13:22:58.BILLW> I just cleaned up my office, and I found a copy of this report prepared for NASA under contract # NASW-2741 by Michael K Evans, Chase Econometric associates, inc, Bala Cynwyd, PA... Ill send out a limited number (say 10) of the paper to people who wish to read the whole thing (this is the "executive summary", about 10 pages), or you might be able to get it from NASA or Chase. : : "Significance of findings : NASA R&D spending increases the rate of technological change and reduces thhr rate of inflation for two reasons [previous comments state that ANY gvnt spending increases jobs, economic stimulation, etc, but at the expense of causing inflation - wew]. First, in the short run, it redistributes demand in thye direction of high technology industries, thus improving aggregate productivity in th economy. As a result, NASA R&D spending tends to be more stabilizing in a recovery period than general government spending. "Second, in the long run, it expands the production possiblity fronteir of the economy by increasing the rate of technological progress. This improves labor productivity further, which results in lower unit labor costs, and hence lower prices. A slower rate of inflation leads in turn to a more rapid rise in real disposbale income permitting consumers to purchase the additional goods and services being produced and generating greater employment. "In assesing these results, we once again stress the importance of distinguishing between demand and supply effects. A $1e9 increase in NASA spnding will have an immediate effect on real GNP, raising it approximately $2.1e9 the first year and $2.5e9 the next year.... " The report is dated April, 1976. Bill Westfield ------------------------------ Date: 4 April 1984 23:36-EST From: Robert Elton Maas Subject: Lunar artillery [sic, more like rifles shooting] To: Ian @ SRI-NIC cc: SPACE @ MIT-MC Date: 1 Apr 1984 09:48 PST (Sun) From: Ian Macky I seem to remember that the projectiles the Americans and Russians were firing at each other were ... rifle rounds ... fired parallel to the ground, and so were able to make it all the way around and sneak up from behind. Hmmm, well then maybe the original story was basically correct, except I'm rather amazed such high-speed bullets were used for such close combat, but maybe... I presume the two bases were on the equator, oriented east-west from each other, so rotation of the moon wouldn't cause bullets to miss launch point laterally? (They would still "miss" longitudinally as Moon rotates, causing nearest-point not to be exactly the same, so bullet is rising or falling just above nearest-point when returning to starting point, but only by 1-cos(angle) which is incredibly small for small angles.) I stand tentatively corrected. ------------------------------ Date: 31 Mar 84 11:51:17-PST (Sat) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: harpo!ulysses!allegra!alice!alb @ Ucb-Vax Subject: 41-C update 41-C is scheduled to launch at 0859 EST on Friday, 6 April. Planned for this mission are the Solar Max repair and the deployment of the Long Duration Exposure Faicility payload, to be picked up again next year. ------------------------------ Date: 30 Mar 84 14:44:43-PST (Fri) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: decvax!genrad!grkermit!masscomp!clyde!watmath!utzoo!henry @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: Reply to Wilkins In-Reply-To: Article <266@sri-arpa.UUCP> ".....building moon rockets seems like an EXTREMELY inefficient way to do basic research. If you want new plastics, materials, glues, etc., why not just look for them and chuck the space program?" Because in practice, such research moves *much* farther and faster when it has a specific objective in mind. The above argument has been given a number of times in response to the argument that improved technology is a major result of ambitious aerospace programs. (Not just space, but high-technology military work too.) The fatal flaw in it is that, by and large, such research simply does not get done without a specific objective to motivate it. The argument is usually used as part of a speech which urges budget cuts for specific projects but never proposes anything to replace them as motivation/funding for research. -- Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology {allegra,ihnp4,linus,decvax}!utzoo!henry ------------------------------ Date: 31 Mar 84 18:40:40-PST (Sat) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: harpo!ulysses!allegra!princeton!down!tilt!smw @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Gary Hart's record Would someone please find out and post Gary Hart's voting record on space issues? If it's consistently correct (i.e., pro-space), I may just say 'what the hell' and vote for the guy. -- Stewart Wiener :-) "Read and weep as did Princeton Univ. EECS :-) Alexander when he beheld {allegra,ihnp4!mhuxi}!princeton!tilt!smw :-) the glories of Egypt." ------------------------------ Date: 30 Mar 84 20:47:49-PST (Fri) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: decvax!cca!ima!haddock!stevel @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: Reply to Wilkins - (nf) #R:sri-arpa:-26600:haddock:16000011:000:1205 haddock!stevel Mar 29 12:07:00 1984 I agree that you don't get 7-14 times the return. I don't agree that just spending the money on Basic Reasearch is the way to get the same technological return. Spinoff are different from basic reasearch. Spinoffs are appication/real world applicable while basic reasearch is often not directly relevant for many years. There needs to be a balance between basic reasearch and advanced APPLICATION of technology. The shuttle and space station are advanced application of technology. Advanced application of technology is more expensive than basic reasearch but the return to knowledge and methods gained by industry is much higher. Mercury, Gemini, Apollo, Shuttle, and many other unmanned spacecraft have added new methods of fabrication and materials to industry as a whole. At the same time more money, and more EVEN funding is needed for basic reasearch. I wish congress would give NASA an even budget for the long run. Keep asking them what they are using it for but keep the funding level even. Steve Ludlum, decvax!yale-co!ima!stevel, {ucbvax|ihnp4}!cbosgd!ima!stevel PS would people on the ARPAnet please sign thier notes. They headers get stripped by the gateway from ARPA to USENET. Thanks. ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 06-Apr-84 0302 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #159 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 159 Today's Topics: "the economic impact of NASA R&D spending" Chuck Yeager ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu 5 Apr 84 10:25:38-PST From: Christopher Schmidt Subject: "the economic impact of NASA R&D spending" To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC.ARPA The report by Michael K Evans (forwarded to the net by BillW@SRI) was so riddled with illogic, it's hard to know where to begin ripping it down. Since I am not by nature a flamer, I will address only the grossest problem. Most of his report depends on the definition of productivity as "dollars spent per capita," and not "product per capita," as any man on the street believes. While the man on the street knows that an increase in "product per capita" (with dollars held constant) decreases inflation, Evans wants you to believe that an increase in "dollars spent per capita" (with product held constant) also decreases inflation. He performs this slight-of-hand by using his own definition of productivity mentioned above. This is the sort of gimmick that gives economists a bad name. Another gimmick employed by sleazy "economists" is defining GNP as the total of all dollars exchanged in business transactions, and then sticking the word "real" in front of it as though GNP calculated by this method had anything to do with real products. [Such a definition of GNP assumes that people only exchange money voluntarily and when they have verified (through a free market) that they are getting a new product of value proportionate to the dollars they spend. The IRS and NASA do not exactly constitute a voluntary or free market.] Evans claims: "A $1e9 increase in NASA spending will have an immediate "effect on real GNP, raising it approximately $2.1e9 the "first year and $2.5e9 the next year.... " I claim: "If I buy a ball point pen for 19 cents on January 1st, and "sell it to you on January 2nd for 1 million dollars, and you "and I sell it back to each other on alternate days for the "rest of the year for 1 million dollars at each transaction, "GNP as calculated by the feds will have increased by 364 million "dollars on a 19 cent investment (quite a multiplier!). On the "other hand, I claim that real GNP has gone up only 19 cents, "and even then, only if we actually use the pen and find that it "actually works and was worth 19 cents!" One of us is full of it. --Christopher ------------------------------ Date: 05 Apr 84 2311 PST From: Rod Brooks Subject: Chuck Yeager To: space@MIT-MC.ARPA PM-Names,650 Names in the News HOUSTON (AP) - Chuck Yeager, who in 1947 became the first man to travel faster than the speed of sound, now says he'd like to pilot the space shuttle - but that it would be ''a waste of money'' to let him do so. ''I wouldn't lend an awful lot to the program,'' the retired Air Force brigadier general told the National Congress on Aerospace Education on Thursday. Yeager, 60, isn't used to taking a back seat to anyone, and he told the 700 educators and industry executives he wouldn't care to be a passenger on the shuttle. ''If I can't fly one, I don't want to ride,'' he said. Yeager, who broke the sound barrier in the experimental X-1 aircraft, said he thinks the shuttle ''has returned the fun of flying'' to the space program. He and other test pilots were scornful of astronauts during the infancy of the manned space program because they felt the new job did not require much skill. ''It's not too hard to train a man to strap a capsule to his fanny and go into space,'' Yeager said in 1963. Yeager was portrayed as the paragon of jet test pilots in Tom Wolfe's book ''The Right Stuff,'' which was made into a movie last year. ap-ny-04-06 0158EDT ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 07-Apr-84 0303 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #160 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 160 Today's Topics: scarse coverage Shuttle Launch Sequence Re: spinoffs Re: Shuttle Lift & Drag Specs ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 6 April 1984 08:53-EST From: Robert Elton Maas Subject: scarse coverage To: SPACE @ MIT-MC Well, 6 minutes before launch and only NBC has any coverage of pre-launch, not CBS or ABC or CNN2 (on channel 20) yet. As I type this, NBC went away for vitamin commercial, then smoker's toothpaste, at T-5, then AT&T. Back to live pre-launch coverage now. ------------------------------ Date: 6 Apr 1984 09:19:34-EST From: Hank.Walker at CMU-CS-VLSI Subject: Shuttle Launch Sequence Some time ago, someone asked on this bboard what would happen if only one SRB ignited on the pad. The answer was that the shuttle would pitch over. This was made more explicit by the astronaut commentator on today's launch. He said that takeoff is instantaneous with SRB ignition. Normally the explosive holddown bolts are blown simultaneously, but if they aren't, they'll just be ripped off and launch will occur anyway. Hank Walker@cmu-cs-vlsi.arpa ------------------------------ Date: 6 Apr 1984 7:57-PST From: dietz%USC-CSE@USC-ECL.ARPA To: space@MIT-MC.ARPA Subject: Re: spinoffs Bill Westfield: I agree completely that we must distinguish demand and supply effects (demand effects being the economic activity generated by NASA engineers spending their salaries, supply effects being new technology). That fact that ANY government spending has the same demand effect is instructive. Can you provide some numbers on supply effects? Henry Spencer, Steve Ludlum: I still think NASA spending on specific space projects is a poor way to foster general technological progress. It certainly isn't necesary (Japan spends much less on space, for example). By "basic research" I really meant to include "basic development": research intended to produce new materials, technologies, etc., such as Japan's MITI sponsored research. I'd still like some hard figures on the value of NASA spinoffs, or even a list of any significant spinoffs. Ferrofluids are one, generating sales of around $100 million a year. Any others? What would the economic return be if an amount of money equal to NASA's budget were instead invested by venture capitalists in high tech startup companies? Quite a bit larger, I'd think, and it would be a real gain, not demand effects. ------------------------------ Date: 1 Apr 84 19:49:46-PST (Sun) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: pur-ee!uiucdcs!ccvaxa!rmiller @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: Shuttle Lift & Drag Specs some info was published by one of the pilots in SOARING a year or few ago. i will try to find it, but can't promise anything right now. SOARING is from the Soaring Society of America uiucdcs!ccvaxa!rmiller ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 08-Apr-84 0403 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #161 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 161 Today's Topics: Re: Space Station Moon bullets Challenger's new launching attitude Re: NASA Lottery Re: Fifth Shuttle ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 30 Mar 84 10:36:28-PST (Fri) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: hplabs!intelca!t4test!murray @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: Space Station In-Reply-To: Article <105@ihnp3.UUCP> > What gives nuclear weapons such a terrible prospect in our minds? > Surely it is not the simple magnitude of their destructiveness; rather > it is their genocidal properties which drives our horror of them. This properly belongs in net.politics, but here goes anyway. I heartily disagree with the above statement. Although the prospect of genocide certainly is factor, the main thing that makes nuclear weapons so terrible is that for the first time non-soldiers can be killed with no chance of getting out of the destructive area. In WWII, we Americans were able to sit in our nice safe homes thousands of miles from the destruction. Only the soldiers had to die. Even in Europe, you could send your children out to the countryside where their chance of survival was good. With nuclear weapons, there is no safe place, and even if there was, there will not be enough warning for you to get there. THAT is what makes nuclear weapons so scary. Murray at Intel @ t4test P.S. If you are going to flame, do it by mail, this is supposed to be a space newsgroup, not poitics. ------------------------------ Date: Saturday, 7 April 1984 15:58:36 EST From: David.Smith@cmu-cs-ius.arpa To: space@mit-mc.arpa Subject: Moon bullets Message-ID: <1984.4.7.20.8.28.David.Smith@cmu-cs-ius.arpa> Problem: How close to horizontal must you fire one of those high-powered rifle bullets for it to stay in orbit? Let's treat the moon as a perfectly smooth sphere of 2160 miles diameter, and assume that our marksman fires from a height of 6 feet. The horizon is 0.083 degrees below the "horizontal," and is located 1.57 miles away. If one fires below the horizon, the bullet will surely hit the moon, whatever its velocity. If one fires above that with infinite velocity, it will miss the moon. 0.083 degrees corresponds to an elevation error of 5.2 inches in 100 yards. But the fastest the bullet can be fired into a return orbit is just below parabolic velocity. To prevent a bullet with parabolic speed from dropping more than six feet, the maximum depression angle is 0.0588 degrees, which corresponds to an aiming error of 3.7 inches in 100 yards. At this angle, the bullet will impact 2.2 miles away. There had better not be a six-foot hill within 4.4 miles of the firing point. By symmetry, this maximum depression angle is also the maximum elevation angle. What if the moon is littered with three-foot hills? Then you had better not fire at an elevation or depression of more than 0.04 degrees, corresponding to an error of 2.6 inches in 100 yards. If the bullet has less than parabolic velocity, these margins dwindle, until they reach zero at circular velocity. (If the bullet goes around at a constant six feet, it will run into highlands sometime.) Rougher terrain also cuts into the margins. Then there is the moon's rotation, which over a month's time is bound to put something in the way of that six foot periapsis. As I recall, Apollo spacecraft circled the moon in about two hours. That puts circular velocity at about 3400 mph, and parabolic velocity at 4800 mph. Mighty fast rifle bullets. David Smith ------------------------------ Date: Sunday, 8 Apr 1984 00:08-EST From: munck@Mitre-Bedford To: space@mit-mc Subject: Challenger's new launching attitude This morning's Boston Globe had a large front-page picture of Challenger "roaring flawlessly toward orbit yesterday atop its booster rockets." The picture shows the Orbiter sitting on top of the ET and SRBs and going up at an angle of about 40 degrees from the horizontal. I didn't see the launch, so I have two possibilities; either Crip got tired of going up upside-down and decided to try a whole new way, or the Globe printed the picture sideways. I've noticed that broadcast commentators seem to be somewhat uncomfortable with the standard launch position, which I assume is necessary to keep the ET from ripping itself off. -- Bob Munck (munck@mitre-bedford) ------------------------------ Date: 2 Apr 84 20:56:03-PST (Mon) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: pur-ee!uiucdcs!parsec!smu!clardy @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: NASA Lottery [] Everyone may not want a ride, but they might be willing to contribute anyway, just to support the space program. ------------------------------ Date: 2 Apr 84 20:55:03-PST (Mon) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: pur-ee!uiucdcs!parsec!smu!clardy @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: Fifth Shuttle {} This is nothing new. Prudential Ins. Company has been considering the purchase of a 5th space shuttle for three years now. Inside sources have indicated that the plan has met no major opposition, and that preparation for funding of the project is currently under way. ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 09-Apr-84 0303 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #162 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 162 Today's Topics: weird experiment on 41C Oberth Wheels big bang "Re: big bang - (nf)" Re: NASA Lottery Re: weird experiment on 41C Big Bang ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 4 Apr 84 20:14:30-PST (Wed) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: decvax!genrad!mit-eddie!barmar @ Ucb-Vax Subject: weird experiment on 41C I read about a real strange experiment going up on 41C, which lifts off this Friday (or this past Friday for many of you suffering from Usenet jet lag). They are sending up 13 million tomatoe seeds (13 MILLION!). They are going to put them in orbit, presumably in some kind of hydroponic apparatus, and leave them there, to be picked up about ten months from now by another shuttle mission. Boy, we're starting to put some strange stuff in orbit these days. -- Barry Margolin ARPA: barmar@MIT-Multics UUCP: ..!genrad!mit-eddie!barmar ------------------------------ Date: 4 Apr 84 13:01:56-PST (Wed) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: harpo!ulysses!mhuxl!mhuxj!mhuxi!charm!mam @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Oberth Wheels [Orbiting laser]------------------> [space bug] Something I've been wondering about for a long time is why the technology of Oberth wheels has not been much used for attitude/spin control in space. The idea goes like this: Inside your ship, you have a flywheel spun by a small motor. If you start with both ship and wheel not spinning, then you can spin the ship by turning the wheel the other way. When you want to stop spinning, you brake the wheel. If you use regenerative braking, you recover most of the energy you used. Use three wheels on orthogonal axes, and you get complete attitude control. For satallites, you spin the wheel, launch into correct orbit, then stop the wheel. For torque used to stop the wheel spins the bird. To despin the bird, you simply start the wheel again. If the wheel is mounted in a gimbal with magnetic bearings and a magnetic clutch to decouple the wheel from the bird at will, you can decouple, bring in the bird, work on it without worrying about the gyroscopic effect of the still-rotating wheel, then recouple and despin the wheel. You could imagine a super-cheap (as these things go) version of the MMU in which attitude control is done by wheels worked by hand-cranks. If you want to make a left roll, you turn the "roll" crank until you are faced as you want to be, then hit the "thrust" button. To compensate for the center of thrust not being in line with your center of gravity, you could have booms with masses on the ends which could be extended. This adjustment could be done manually or under control of a simple autopilot. There must be something I'm missing which makes these ideas impractical, since I know of no present uses of the Oberth wheel technology. Could it be that since NASA didn't invent the wheel, they won't use it :-)? BTW, I read a lot of Heinlein stories and I know it shows. {BTL}!charm!mam ------------------------------ Date: 3 Apr 84 11:05:21-PST (Tue) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: harpo!jrl @ Ucb-Vax Subject: big bang Here is an interesting question posed by a friend. It is believed that we live in an expanding universe that was created from an very small very dense and very hot 'point' that let go around 20 billion years ago. There are two outcomes of this. One being that this event was a one time thing and the universe is open. That is that it will keep expanding until entropy sets in and the stars die out and that is the end of it. The other theory is that the universe is an oscillating one. That is it expands, and after some time it contracts again into that 'point' and the big bang starts over again with a new universe with new phyisical laws and constants. I tend to subscribe to the latter theory since the contraction of the universe into a primordal 'point' that goes off again makes some sense. If the universe is a one time occurance, then one can say that perhaps the first line in the bible explains it all .... In the beginning there was light ! ...... Now the question: When the universe was the size of a softball (i.e. at T = 1 x 10 E -39 second and the temprature was 1 x 10 E +35 degrees kelvin) WHAT WAS THE FIREBALL EXPANDING INTO ????? and what lies beyond the 20 billion light-year barrier. An interesting article appeared in Scientific American about the creation and state of the universe. One interesting thing is that perhaps we exist in more than four dimensions, They said that a universe with seven dimensions works out well in theory. And another interesting point that was made is perhaps the distinction between past, present and future becomes 'blurred' at the Plank level of dimensions ( 1 x 10 E -33 cm). Too bad I can not understand the math used to postulate these interesting theories harpo!jrl ------------------------------ Date: 4 Apr 84 16:01:29-PST (Wed) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: ihnp4!ihlpf!jrl @ Ucb-Vax Subject: "Re: big bang - (nf)" #R:harpo:-225600:ihlpf:8600002:000:929 ihlpf!donr Apr 4 11:42:00 1984 I remember seeing a show on the Chicago PBS station that provided some information on the Big Bang Theory. I don't remember the name of the show, but I am pretty shure it was not Nova. The interesting thing that they brought out was that if the universe did start with a Big Bang and is still expanding as a result of that, then it will keep expanding and eventually die. This conclusion was based on the estimates of the total amount of matter in the universe. It was concluded that there just is not enough matter to cause the reverse oscillation to occur. My posting of this information is not intended to be a statement of my beliefs. I just wanted to pass on what I thought was some interesting information. D. R. Rueckehim AT&T Bell Labs Naperville, Il. ------------------------------ Date: 29 Mar 84 22:13:40-PST (Thu) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: decvax!mcnc!ncsu!uvacs!mdg @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: NASA Lottery > Also, how many people, honestly, WANT a ride on the shuttle? I certainly > do, but I know a lot of non-idiot, non-proxmirish people who support the > space program, but would not want a ride. I DO! What surprises me even more, are the extremes. I was talking to a friend of mine about the possibility of a manned mission to Mars. As one might expect, we got to the issue of cost. He claimed that we could probably cut the cost by an order of magnitude if only we didn't have to worry about bringing the astronauts back. I asked where he expected to get volunteers. HE volunteered! He is retired from industry and he'd love to use his extensive engineering talents in space. I pointed out that the cost of several months worth of supplies would eat up all the savings from not returning. He replied that: "It doesn't HAVE to be permanent ..." This isn't MY point of view. BUT, I still don't think that we would have any problem with passenger interest in any space mission. Hoping to catch a ride (and return, thank you), Mike Geipel ------------------------------ Date: 5 Apr 84 3:26:55-PST (Thu) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: harpo!ulysses!allegra!alice!alb @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: weird experiment on 41C In-Reply-To: Article <1543@mit-eddie.UUCP> The experiment Barry mentions is part of the Long Duration Exposure Facility, a palet of stuff that will be injected into LEO on 41C and picked up by a shuttle mission next year. The experiments are designed to measure how different substances hold up against the cosmic rays and other neat things out there. ------------------------------ Date: 5 Apr 84 6:37:47-PST (Thu) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: decvax!decwrl!rhea!akov01!godin @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Big Bang There has been much discussion on whether the universe is "open" or "closed". The thought of a "open" universe is unappealing to us because we like to think that "something" will go on forever. If the "Big Bang" was a one time occurance and it we accept the Law of Entropy, the future of the universe is rather bleak. The notion of the "close" universe is more appealing because of the cyclic nature of the universe in that theory. We may perish but at least the universe will continue on. One other theory states that we exist in a universe within a universe. That our universe may be a atom in another universe and that the creation and destruction of our world occurs in a "split second" of the other world. After all the most basic thing to us, time, is only relative. We "time" the univrese by how many times the Earth goes around the Sun. Just think if our year to an outside observer (God?) takes by that observer's watch a tenth of a second, then the whole life of the universe has taken a couple of minutes. Film at Eleven. ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 10-Apr-84 0304 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #163 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 163 Today's Topics: Oberth wheels how to grab a satellite Two questions about Shuttle flight Re: Oberth Wheels Re: Big Bang Re: big bangs Talk by Donna Pivirotto Need space station or platform Re: Oberth Wheel, Big Bang technology via space project vs. pure technology projects 41-C launched shuttle launched ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Monday, 9 April 1984 11:21:12 EST From: David.Smith@cmu-cs-ius.arpa To: space@mit-mc.arpa Subject: Oberth wheels Message-ID: <1984.4.9.16.20.28.David.Smith@cmu-cs-ius.arpa> Oberth wheels were used for attitude control in Skylab. ------------------------------ Date: 9 Apr 1984 1010-PST From: Richard M. King Subject: how to grab a satellite To: space@KESTREL Anyone know why the following wouldn't work? (or whether it would) 1> set MMU to be inertially stabilized 2> grab a solar panel of slowly rotating satellite 3> hold on until satellite stops By my calculations (assuming a moment of 500 slug-feet) the satellite has angular momentum that would require 10 foot-pound-seconds to stop. Doesn't really seem to me to be beyond the reach of normal human strength, even in a space suit (and he's supposed to be an amateur weight lifter). It also doesn't seem likely to me that this kind of force would break off the panels. If someone had a bit more chutsbah they could plan to make contact with a part of the satellite that was coming towards them and kill the rotation that way! Dick ------- ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 9 Apr 84 10:12:09 PST From: Rich Wales To: space@MIT-MC.ARPA Subject: Two questions about Shuttle flight Group W Cable (Los Angeles, CA) is broadcasting NASA-generated coverage of this shuttle flight, on one of their otherwise unused channels. I plan to write then a letter commending them for this service. I have two questions about the flight and its coverage: (1) Why are the distances, speeds, etc. measured in terms of nautical miles? Why not statute miles? For that matter, why not kilometers? (2) The wall map showing the position of the shuttle shows part of each orbit surrounded by square brackets. If I remember correctly, the "left" bracket is always positioned at the southern extremity of the orbit; the "right" bracket, on the other hand, is not at the nor- thern extremity of the orbit, but rather is around 20 degrees north latitude. What do these brackets mean? -- Rich ------------------------------ Date: 9 Apr 84 10:40:48 PST (Monday) From: Lynn.es@Xerox.ARPA Subject: Re: Oberth Wheels In-reply-to: mam's message of 4 Apr 84 13:01:56-PST To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC.ARPA cc: Lynn.es@Xerox.ARPA Reply-To: Lynn.es@Xerox.ARPA Information I recently saw says that the Amateur Space Telescope, going up in a couple of years, and being built mostly by Rensselaer (RPI), will use reaction (Oberth) wheels. They concluded that it was the only way to build it for kilobucks instead of megabucks. It also has the advantage of running off electric power from a rather small solar panel, and so needs to carry no fuel. It will have four wheels, one a spare to stand in for any failure. They are using magnetic bearings and expect very small fraction of a second of arc pointing error. I think the bearings are the unproven technology in the design, but they will be tested in space before being used on the telescope. /Don Lynn ------------------------------ Date: 9 Apr 84 11:19:10 PST (Monday) From: Lynn.es@Xerox.ARPA Subject: Re: Big Bang In-reply-to: jrl's message of 3 Apr 84 11:05:21-PST To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC.ARPA cc: Lynn.es@Xerox.ARPA Reply-To: Lynn.es@Xerox.ARPA Although we haven't found enough matter to gravitationally stop the expanding universe in the distant future, there are a couple of indications that there may be hidden stuff that will do the job. First, some galaxy rotational studies show that what we see in galaxies is surrounded by a lot more matter that we don't see. Second is the recent measurements that seem to indicate that the Neutrino may have a small, but non-zero, rest mass. This particle should inhabit the universe in incredible numbers according to current theories of nuclear fusion, and might, even with a tiny mass, add up to more mass than the matter we are used to. Now for the real question you posed (WHAT WAS THE FIREBALL EXPANDING INTO ?). By general relativity, we consider space itself curved by gravity. If the universe has enough mass to eventually collapse, then space actually curves around on itself. There is no outside (not in three dimensions), you just come back on yourself eventually. If the universe is not gravitationally closed, then it's even harder to explain. I guess it's something less than empty space. Incidentally, we don't know that the big bang started as a point. We just don't know of any limit to the density of matter, so when we extrapolate the expansion backwards, it reaches a point. "what lies beyond the 20 billion light-year barrier"? Unless we can find some means that transmits information faster than light, we will never know what is beyond the barrier, that is, beyond x light years, where x is the age of the universe. /Don Lynn ------------------------------ Date: 9-Apr-84 14:17 PST From: Kirk Kelley Subject: Re: big bangs To: space@mit-mc.arpa Message-ID: <[OFFICE-2.ARPA]TYM-KIRK-4G6I4> This discussion should probably move to the Physics list. Have you ever wondered why astronomers and physicists keep refering to THE big bang. Surely it does not take all the mass and time of the universe before a black hole produces a singularity that leads to an explosion. Not all physicists subscribe to the big bang. Fred Hoyle, formerly of Cambridge, has said a sickly pall now hangs over the big-bang theory. Jayant Narlikar, a leading Indian theoretical physicist comments "Astrophysicists of today who hold that the `ultimate cosmological problem' has been more or less solved may well be in for a few surprises before this century is out." -- meditator on nothing ------------------------------ Date: 09 Apr 84 16:03:02 PST (Mon) To: space@Mit-Mc cc: nancy@UCI-750a Subject: Talk by Donna Pivirotto From: "Tim Shimeall" Donna Pivirotto, the manager of the Space Station office at JPL gave a talk today at UCI on the space station and its current goals. The following is a summary of her talk. Anything which sounds out of place should be attributed to my notetaking. The Space station is currently planned to go up in the early 1990's (Anything before 1994 is a politically acceptable solution, given the President's initial speech on the subject.) An initial $8 billion budget is planned, including development of an orbital manuvering vehicle, which will also be used in connection with the shuttle. The current effort has been mainly dedicated to determining what functions the station will have. The following major functions have been pretty firmly decided: - Science/applications and Technology Laboratory (with particular emphasis on Life Science experiments). - Permanent observatories (20-30 year duration, for both stellar and earth observations) - Manufacturing facility (geared towards "for profit" experimentation by private groups) - Free flyer servicing facility (on the order of the Solar Max mission of the shuttle) - Communications and Data Processing node (to work with TDRSS) - Transportation Node (for deep space missions) - Assembly Facility (for deep space missions, large antennas, etc.) - Orbital Storage facility. It is planned to have an international group of mission sponsors, rather than one space station user. The station will be in the most convinient orbit for shuttle servicing - a 28.5 degree inclination Low Earth Orbit. It is planned to put up a 'cheap' station first, and then expand it, as follows: Initial Full Budget 7.5 - 9 Billion 17-20 Billion Crew 6-8 persons 12 persons Power 60 kw (w/thermal expulsion) 160kw The station is projected to have about 300 cubic meters of volume by 1999. The station will support attached and free flying payloads, in addition to two (unmanned) space platforms, one in Polar orbit, and one in 28.5 degree orbit. There will also be several on-board labs, for experiments that require human participants or supervision. Eventually, the station will also include a space-based OTV (described as "Kennedy in the Sky"). The design of the station is still quite tentative, but most designs use 14' x 30' "cans", transported up in the shuttle, arranged in orientation with the earth (nadir pointing). This reduces station drag, but increases problems with instrument aiming. The polar orbiting space platform (called the "Earth Observation System" or "System Z") will include observations on the earth's environment, ocean dynamics, solar input, land use, atmosphere, and continental geology. All this is part of the Global Habitability study, a planned program for the near future. It will be launched and serviced from Vandenburg, due to "change of orbit" energy costs. It is included with the space station, since the power and support technologies will be derived from those developed from the space station. The initial launch is planned for between 1991 and 1994, with 2 year incemental launches therafter. The station will be operated for NASA customers - exclusively, with performance of services guaranteed. Policies for this are currently being formulated. The station project is doing a LOT of research on automation of the station and its functions, to reduce the "on board" support crew needed to as small a part of the crew as possible. The goal is to have one station "housewife" (possibly male) which performs all the station upkeep, with the aid of a LOT of automated tools, some artificially intellegent. The remainder of the crew would be mission specialists. There will still remain a need for men in space, to handle the following functions: - Repair unanticipated damage (as in SkyLab) - Adapt, either to unanticipated problems or for flexibility in the performance of experiments. - Real time sensing (with no delay, which can be important in manufacturing) - Perform one-of-a-kind functions, which are not practical to automate - Provide security for information Current projections indicate it will cost about $100K/day to maintain a human in orbit, which will reduce the recreational uses of the station. People are planned to be in orbit for as long as 180 days (although it should be noted that Ms. Pivirotto termed this a 'straw man' figure). The talk concerned itself mainly with the commercial applications of the space station, but in response to a question, Ms. Pivirotto made the following comments about DoD use of the station: - DoD currently "does not need" a space station -- which may simply mean that they want NASA to pay for it (a strategy they used with the shuttle). Everyone anticipates that DoD will use the station, but there are some drawbacks to military use of this station: a) The station is VERY vulnerable b) There is intended to be a LOT of international use of the station, and possibly a lot of international participation in its construction, which makes LOTS of security problems for the military. c) the station is not in the most useful orbit, militarily. Given these problems, DoD will probably launch its own station, in a polar orbit, eventually. Until then, the main hope is that DoD won't usurp the station entirely. The technology for closed life support systems is not anticipated to be available before 1994. Current plans are to service the station by shuttle, which may cause problems. The crew will need about 56K lbs. of water for 90 days, a figure which is too heavy for the shuttle landing gear. So some redesign of the shuttle may be needed. Traffic control around the station is anticipated to be a REAL problem, in 3 dimensions, once the station becomes fully operational. ******************************************************** Note: This lecture is part of Social Ecology E149, a course entitled "Life in Space", which discusses the various problems associated with the space station. This course meets at the University of California, Irvine, on Monday and Wednesday from 11:00 to 12:20 in 161 Humanities Hall. The following is a list of lecturers for the remainder of the quarter: Apr. 16 Prof. K. Baldwin (UCI physiology) "Physiological Changes of Humans Under Prolonged Space Flight" Apr. 23 Dr. B.J. Bluth (CSU Northridge Dept. of Sociology and NASA HQ) "Isolation and Confinement: Case Studies of Violence and Disruption" Apr 25 Dr. Mary Conners (Man-Vehicle systems research at NASA-Ames) "Performance in Space: Changes in the Human Physiological Condition" Apr. 30 Dr. R.L. Percy (Space Station Operations Safety at Rockwell) " Space Station Operation Safety" May 7 Prof. Daniel Stokols (UCI Social Ecology) "Geomorphic Architecture and 3-D Space Design" May 21 Dr. Warren James (NASA - JPL) "Schedule Planning for Spacecraft Operations" May 23 Prof. John King (UCI - Computer Science) "Humans in an Automated Environment" June 6 Stan Sadin, Deputy, Space Systems Directorate (Office of Aeronautics and Space Technology) "Beyond the Space Station and 2001" Tim ------------------------------ Date: 09 Apr 84 1650 PST From: Robert Maas Subject: Need space station or platform To: SPACE@MIT-MC.ARPA Here's another reason for needing a space station in LEO, or at least a docking platform with communication/tracking and attitude-control: Suppose we had it now, and docked with it were tanks of various kinds of fuels and other consumables and spare space-tugs both of manned an robotic type (or better, a single kind of space-tug that can be used both remotely-controlled or local-manned). Well, would we now have the problem that the solar-max repair may have to be cut short unsuccessful because we are running out of STS maneuvering fuel? No! We'd have lots of leeway in extending the mission if it seemed we needed just another day to get the damn thing docked and repaired. But the way it is now, we may run out of fuel and have to end the mission as an 80% failure, it's gonna be close as I type this on Monday evening. ------------------------------ Date: 9 Apr 1984 1456 PST From: Doug Freyburger Subject: Re: Oberth Wheel, Big Bang To: Space@MIT-MC Reply-To: DOUG@JPL-VLSI.ARPA (Pre.S. Please put me on the Space-Enthusiasts mailing list. Thanks.) Re: Oberth wheel In fact, there has been at least one spacecraft to use the Oberth wheel technique for attitude control. The late IRAS (Infra-Red Astromony Satelite) had four gyros (one backup) for just this use. At launch the satelite was put in a near polar orbit, and its spin was adjusted so that it always pointed away from Earth. From then on, it scanned two 3/4-circles per orbit by accelerating its gyros slowly to scan the sky at more than orbit scan rate, from pointing almost "straight back" to pointing almost "straight up" during each half-orbit. The gyros where quickly decelerated to slew to scope back to the "straight back" position to start again. This trick both maximized sky coverage, and avoided pointing the scope "forwards" in its direction of movement. It was liquid helium cooled, and even the few air molecules inhaled would stick in the liquid helium bath, boiling the helium, frosting the mirror, and slowing the orbit. The usual problems of friction had to be dealt with with attitude thrusters. I don't know if they used magnetic bearings or what. The most interesting feature of IRAS was not its Oberth wheel attitude control, but its orbit. It was (is) a near polar orbit with some added bells and whistles. Its procession-of-the-equinoxes has a one year period. It always faces the sun at the same angle! I would like to see whoever figured out that one give us an over-view of the math. Re: big bang The statement in the Scientific American article said that time blurs at Plank Unit sizes. I had enough quantum mechanics in Phys 2 at CalTech to keep up with that one. Time really should not be meaningfull in units less than a Plank Time. What I was wondering about while I read the article is why that time blurring should extend/expand linearly out into time-space. Were they really saying that the time-bluriness at a distanse is now bigger than a single Plank-Time? Is there some sort of proportianality vs distance from the original center? Did anyone out there have a clear picture about this? I once read a suggestion that this small-universe really is an infinitely expanding big bang, but the rest of the big-universe as a whole fits the classic steady-state model. In this case, the matter addition to maintain an even mass distribution is supplied by occasional new big bang small-universe creation. I guess the mass distribution just isn't either as high or as even as the originally proposed steady-state model. I guess the question of open vs closed universes is just an estetic one for the moment. Most of us simply don't WANT our universe to really be facing a true entropy heat death. Study into the missing-mass problem may someday bring the problem into the actual detail-of-calculations mode. Let's hope. (-)NX for the interest, Doug ------ ------------------------------ Date: 9 April 1984 20:37-EST From: Robert Elton Maas Subject: technology via space project vs. pure technology projects To: SPACE @ MIT-MC Here's another idea that came to mind on why spinoff from space is more effective than direct projects to develop wonderful plastics etc. (sorry for length, I don't know how to boil these things down). First, motivation. It's terribly to work years to develop something and not see anybody use it until you're dead and buried, or to see no use for it while you're working on it and FEAR you'll be dead and buried before anybody finds a use for it. Sometimes in pure mathematics something is so beautiful you just do it without any prospect for real use [how's that for an understatement!!! sometimes should really be 99% of the time in mathematics, but in applied math like data compression or data representation you still sometimes come up with a practical method that is so mathematically beautiful you don't need an actual use to get gratification]. But in normal technology such as developing plastics, it's awfully demoralizing to spend a couple years working on something and then see it just set to pasture when you're done, as if you've just waisted two years of your life, it would have been more fun to masturbate those two years if you could have gotten paid for it. - But with a task to develop some product for a need that already exists, such as plastic for Apollo cockpit that won't burn suddenly and kill the astronauts, you get to see your work used immediately after you finish it, instant intellectual gratifiction, the true work ethic at its best. Second, it's awful hard to really get the bugs out of something if nobody ever uses it in real practice. In programing I am frequently very lonely because nobody wants to try the program I wrote even though I think it's neat, then four years later when I can't even remember how it worked somebody finally uses it and finds a hundred obvious bugs that should have been worked out at the start instead of four years later. I know that if you have only programmer-testing, not even alpha testing (your co-workers), you can't perfect your work, and wit only alpha testing you still don't get it really right. The result of research for something that is never going to be used is shoddy work, not just in programming but in just about anything, in fact moreso in other fields where the developer simply doesn't have the facilities to properly test the product that has been developed. Third, the synergism between the two above, a conscientious worker who knows nobody will use what he developed and it'll sit shoddy in pasture for years before it is totally forgotten, really won't have any reason for doing good work, and thus won't have any incentive to work at all because shoddy work really isn't fun if you know it. All in all, you don't really contribute to society or economy or quality of life or peace of mind or work ethic or job satisfaction by useless make-work. Only true scientific work where you have a bunch of peers to review your work has a chance of succeeding in the absence of real-world feedback. I can't imagine peers evaluating a new plastic in the same critical way that peers would review a new quantum gauge theory. Thus I agree for technological development, you really need to have a testable goal in mind, not just some random useless-product goal, thus I agree putting money into space is better than putting money into abstract "better-plastic" R&D. ------------------------------ Date: 6 Apr 84 7:14:33-PST (Fri) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: ihnp4!ihlts!rjnoe @ Ucb-Vax Subject: 41-C launched Space shuttle Challenger launched on time at 0858 EST (1358 GMT) this morning, April 6, 1984 from Kennedy Space Center, and began a direct insertion into a 250 nautical mile apogee orbit, higher than all previous space shuttle orbits. The orbiter will reach a high point of 285 nautical miles on this mission. This is the eleventh STS flight, and the fifth for the Challenger. This also sets a record for the most humans in space at one time; there are five Soviets and one Indian currently aboard Salyut-7 and they are now joined by the five Americans aboard Challenger: commander Robert L. Crippen, who is making his third space shuttle flight, pilot Francis R. Scobee, and mission specialists George D. Nelson, Terry J. Hart, and James D. van Hoften. On Saturday the astronauts will deploy the Long Duration Exposure Facility (LDEF-1), a 10.5 ton payload about 30 feet long. This satellite, which contains 57 experiments, will be left in orbit for retrieval next year. On Sunday the Challenger will ascend to its higher orbit and Nelson will use the Manned Maneuvering Unit (which was tested on the previous shuttle mission) to rendezvous with the disabled Solar Maximum Mission (SMM) satellite. Nelson will stop the 2.5 ton satellite's uncontrolled spinning and then Hart will use the shuttle's Remote Manipulator System to berth SMM in Challenger's payload bay. Nelson and van Hoften will then repair the faulty SMM attitude control unit. On Tuesday, the astronauts will use another EVA to attempt to repair other electronic components of SMM. If these repairs are successful, the SMM will be redeployed on Wednesday, otherwise it will return to Earth with Challenger. Landing is currently set for 0810 EST at Kennedy Space Center next Thursday after 92 Earth revolutions. -- Roger Noe ihnp4!ihlts!rjnoe ------------------------------ Date: 6 Apr 84 6:17:23-PST (Fri) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: ihnp4!inuxc!fred @ Ucb-Vax Subject: shuttle launched The shuttle launched on time this morning. Weather was excellent and the television images were great. I think this is the first time a previous Bell Labs employee made it to orbit. The rest of us can hope and dream. Fred Mendenhall AT&T CP Indianapolis ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 11-Apr-84 0304 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #164 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 164 Today's Topics: Re: big bangs Re: big bangs (n) / ultimate problems (2) Solar Max Mission Failure/Success Nautical miles Nautical Miles Prudential Sundries... Why not the arm first? Re: weird experiment on 41C ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 10 April 1984 06:46-EST From: Robert Elton Maas Subject: Re: big bangs To: KIRK.TYM @ OFFICE-2 cc: SPACE @ MIT-MC We refer to R.Reagan as "THE President of the USA" even though other presidents came before him. Likewise we refer to our current big-bang as "THE big bang", and I think the terminology is appropriate, providing when somebody asks about the terminology we define "THE big bang" as "the one that caused this universe we're in now, as contrasted with predecessors and successors and alternatives which might also exist in time" rather than misleading the asker into thinking there was/willbe/is only one bing bang ever. ------------------------------ Date: 10 April 1984 06:55-EST From: Robert Elton Maas Subject: Re: big bangs (n) / ultimate problems (2) To: KIRK.TYM @ OFFICE-2 cc: SPACE @ MIT-MC Date: 9-Apr-84 14:17 PST From: Kirk Kelley Fred Hoyle, formerly of Cambridge, has said a sickly pall now hangs over the big-bang theory. I think he's overstating it. As I understand, to a first-order approximation we now understand what has happened since a tiny fraction of a second after the big-bang singularity. It's just that looking close to the singularity things are so different from now that we haven't yet figured out exactly what was going on, maybe inflationary universe, maybe not, ... But the basic theory after three minutes is pretty much undisputed except for parameters like total mass-energy and age to present, right? Jayant Narlikar, a leading Indian theoretical physicist comments "Astrophysicists of today who hold that the `ultimate cosmological problem' has been more or less solved may well be in for a few surprises before this century is out." Well, we still have some stuff to work out, but really I don't think the 'ultimate cosmological problem' of our origin is still totally up in the air. Still, the details of the first microsecond are bound to be new and interesting and perhaps surprising, and parameters that affect our ultimate fate (total mass-energy, lifetime of proton) are important for the other ultimate cosmological problem (our ultimate fate) and have yet to be determined. I'm not sure which of the two "ultimate cosmological problems" he&you were referring to above, origin or fate. ------------------------------ Date: Tue 10 Apr 84 08:52:33-EST From: Anthony J. Courtemanche Subject: Solar Max Mission Failure/Success To: space@MIT-MC But the way it is now, we may run out of fuel and have to end the mission as an 80% failure, it's gonna be close as I type this on Monday evening. Somehow I disagree that the failure percentage would be that high. I consider it a great success that the astronaut who was flying the MMU (I forget his name now) was able to successfully approach the rotating satellite. The failure was (as I understand it) only with the device that was to attach with the pin on the Solar Max. To me that indicates only that a small piece of machinery isn't up to par. Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't it the case that during the Gemini project, docking procedures were practiced and it was found to be extremely difficult. Now we can stap a man with a backpack and he is able successfully approach and get in contact with a rotating object in space. I consider this a success in it's own right. Optimistically Yours Anthony J. Courtemanche AC@MIT-OZ ------------------------------ Date: Tuesday, 10 April 1984 12:06:28 EST From: David.Smith@cmu-cs-ius.arpa To: Rich Wales cc: space@mit-mc.arpa Subject: Nautical miles Message-ID: <1984.4.10.16.55.5.David.Smith@cmu-cs-ius.arpa> Why are the distances, speeds, etc. measured in terms of nautical miles? Why not statute miles? For that matter, why not kilometers? It is time-honored navigational practice. Given the coordinates of origin and destination, spherical trigonometry can be used to produce the arc length between them, expressed in angular measure (vertex of angle at center of earth). This arc is historically measured in degrees, minutes, and seconds. The nautical mile is defined to be one arc-minute over the surface of the earth. I will tiptoe quietly away from the question of how the earth's oblateness is handled. David Smith ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 10 Apr 84 13:33 PST From: LShilkoff.es@Xerox.ARPA Subject: Nautical Miles "Why are the distances, speeds, etc. measured in terms of nautical miles? Why not statute miles? For that matter, why not kilometers? Nautical miles is the standard unit of distance used by pilots worldwide. More than likely, it was chosen by NASA (or whatever it was called way back when) because of the close relationship with the Air Force and other flight branches of the armed forces. Seems to be even more appropriate today with our latest space vehicle resembling an airplane rather than an inverted kitchen funnel. LShilkoff.es@xerox.ARPA Larry ------------------------------ Date: 10 Apr 1984 20:16:14-EST From: Dale.Amon at CMU-RI-FAS Subject: Prudential The funding effort Prudential Insurance was involved with was Spacetran, run by Klauss Heist. William H. Sword Investment was also involved. Spacetran recently disbanded, partially due to a falling out between Sword and Heist. Additionally, NASA never accepted officially accepted their proposal for review, as has occured with Cyprus (now Astrotech International). NASA had the attitude that Spacetran was 'too greedy'. This is not to say that Cyprus will fair any better, but considering the Rockwell connections, I suspect the chances are somewhat more realistic. In any case, don't hold your breath. NASA has indicated that it still considers the shuttle to be an R&D vehicle that is not yet 'debugged'. For those who follow launches religiously, the continuing glitches show that these is indeed a correct opinion. Realistic commercialization is going to require, at the very least, a cure for the excessive engine wear they are experiencing, not to mention the problems of upper atmosphere oxygen penetrating and damaging shuttle structural materials. It is my feeling that when the time comes (a few years) Cyprus will be given a serious opportunity. It will take several years of negotiation with NASA in the best of cases, so Cyprus is wise to start the ball rolling at this time. ------------------------------ Date: 10 Apr 1984 20:38:51-EST From: Dale.Amon at CMU-RI-FAS Subject: Sundries... 1) The tomato seeds (and several other plants in smaller quantities) are being orbitted by a seed company and will be given out to 100,000 schools for student biology experiments 2) The closure of the universe is still a wide open topic. "The problem of the missing mass" is relevent. Galactic clusters orbit in ways that imply much more mass than classical astronomy expected. Another instance of this problem is our own galaxy. The visible portion of it's pinwheel rotates as if most of the mass were outside of it. The rotational anomaly has led some astronomers to hypothesize that there is a shell of matter extending past the three (yes, Virginia, I said three) Magellanic clouds. Other possiblilites have been suggested, such as having the curve of mass versus stellar count continue to increase into the realm of brown dwarves. The existance of large intergalactic clouds of Nuetral Hydrogen has been suggested, and (to some extent) proven. In no case has the open/closed question been answered, however. 3) I believe that Skylab used an 3 axis inertial platform for positioning. If you push on a Gyroscope, it will move at a 90 deg angle to the applied force. Thus Skylab did not need to use thrusters to perform an attitude change. If my memory has failed me, let the NASA people out there dowse my flaming... 4) Tell your engineer friend that I'd love to keep him company. I'll bring a guitar and a deck of cards... Ad Astra, Dale Amon, Pres. Pgh L5 amon@cmu-ri-fas.ARPA ------------------------------ Date: 10 Apr 84 1841 PST From: Rod Brooks Subject: Why not the arm first? To: space@MIT-MC.ARPA AM-SHUTTLE-EXPLAIN By WILLIAM J. BROAD c.1984 N.Y. Times News Service CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. - After a free-flying astronaut failed to capture the ailing Solar Max satellite and the shuttle's robot arm dramatically succeeded, space agency officials have been pointedly asked why they picked man over machine in the first place. Was it mere grandstanding? Space agency officials say it was anything but that. They point to a surprising chain of events involving unexpected risk, sheer luck and, in the end, calm determination and self-assurance. The risk came when Dr. George D. Nelson, flying free in space 200 feet from the shuttle, failed to latch onto the crippled satellite and made matters worse by putting it into an end-over-end tumble as he repeatedly bumped it with the docking device. The luck came when the satellite's equipment performed much better than anyone expected to reduce its wobble, spin and tumble. And quiet confidence came when ground simulations showed it would be easy to capture the stabilized satellite with the robot arm. According to John Cox, the flight director in Houston, the ''gold star'' goes to the scientists on the ground who succeeded better than anyone expected in halting the satellite's gyrations. The reason for planning a manned rescue in the first place was that the satellite was spinning too fast for the robot arm, at one revolution every six minutes. Flight controllers were afraid to slow down the satellite with its on-board backup control system because simulated tests on the ground had suggested that such a maneuver could also increase the rate of tumble. Cox said at a news briefing that before the rescue attempt, simulations had shown that slowing the spin that way could increase the wobble ''to about 40 or 50 degrees.'' That kind of wobble, he said, is what doomed the rescue attempt with the robot arm Sunday. With the satellite's outspread solar panels flailing about, Capt. Robert L. Crippen of the Navy, the space shuttle's commander, had to keep the shuttle popping up and down to avoiding hitting them while trying to maneuver the robot arm close to the satellite's grappling fixture. He abandoned that approach after four attempts. The situation Sunday was bleak. It looked as though Solar Max was out of control and might never see the sun again. Not only was it spinning, as it had been before the first retrieval attempt, but it was also spinning twice as fast, one rotation every three minutes. It was also tumbling end over end and wobbling from side to side. A second approach by a free-flying astronaut equipped with a different mechanical jaw to latch onto the satellite was ruled out because there was not enough fuel left on the shuttle in case the astronaut accidentally drifted away and had to be rescued. At this point, late Sunday night, engineers at the Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., used the backup control system and a new computer program to arrest the violent motions of the satellite. Because the wobble was already so bad there was nothing to lose and everything to gain, they said. William Steward, the mission operatons manager, said it was a long shot nonetheless. ''You don't know whether the spacecraft is going to end up looking at the sun, which is what you'd like it to do to get the most power, or looking at some other place in space.'' Unless they faced the sun, the solar panels of the satellite might not be able to charge its batteries. Meanwhile, power was slipping away. ''We came within minutes of losing it,'' Stewart said. One sign of the desperation was the backup plan. If the stabilization maneuver failed the engineers were prepared, right before the batteries gave out, to fire explosive bolts on the satellite and jettison the solar panels in the hope that the blast would add a bit of stabilty to the satellite's motion and ease an attempt at retrieval by the robot arm. But late Sunday night, just as the batteries were about to give out, Solar Max caught a burst of sunlight, ''a glorious sun,'' as Steward put it. An additional bit of luck was that a new computer program sent to the satellite from the Goddard Space Center allowed the backup control system to eliminate nearly all the spinning and wobbling of the satellite. ''The wobble on the satellite is somewhere between 1 and 9 degrees as opposed to the 15, 20, 30, 40 that we expected preflight if we ever got down to this low rotation rate,'' Cox, the flight director, said By late in the day the satellite was rotating once every 12 minutes, exactly half its original speed. At this point space agency officials started to exude confidence. ''We're in good shape and expect a good shot at it,'' said Jay Greene, the chief flight director. Meanwhile, in Houston, other astronauts were attempting the grappling maneuver on a mission simulator and finding no problems at all. Asked how the simulation went, Cox said, ''Oh yes, it went without a miss.'' ''When you get down to those well-behaved dynamics'' on a satellite, he said, ''it's easy for a well-trained crewman. I can't get in there and hit a lick with it, but they do it real well.'' nyt-04-10-84 2012est ------------------------------ Date: 6 Apr 84 11:02:49-PST (Fri) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: hplabs!tektronix!orca!shark!philb @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: weird experiment on 41C In-Reply-To: Article <1543@mit-eddie.UUCP> <2679@alice.UUCP> The 13 million tomatoe seeds experiment is sponsored by Park Seed and will NOT attempt to grow these seeds while in the Long Duration Exposure Facility (LDEF). The seeds will be distributed to schools around the country to allow schoolchildren to experiment with the space exposed seeds once they have been retrieved by the orbiter. Attack of the Killer Toamtoes anyone?? Phil Biehl Tektronix, Inc. ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 12-Apr-84 0303 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #165 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 165 Today's Topics: NASA spinoffs Re: Poor News Coverage Re: big bangs / ultimate problems Big Bang Source Shuttle upside down? Challenger Nears Solar Max ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 11 Apr 1984 1013-EST From: John Redford To: space at MIT-MC cc: redford at SHORTY Subject: NASA spinoffs Message-ID: <"MS10(2124)+GLXLIB1(1136)" 12006623711.17.583.6421 at DEC-MARLBORO> Compared to an outfit like Bell Labs NASA's spinoffs look pretty minor. Has NASA produced any innovation on the order of the transistor, the laser, fiber optics, or even UNIX? Some might point to integrated circuits as a major spinoff, but NASA had little to do with their development. MOS devices are not radiation-resistant enough for their needs and even TTL was an unproven, unreliable technology at the time. It may be a little unfair to compare a development agency like NASA with the premier research organization in the world, but let's put NASA's spinoffs into perspective. It hasn't produced nearly the amount of new stuff that Bell or the major universities have. And why should it? Spinoffs are not the reason for its existence. NASA's goal is to open up space, not to do product development. The real impact of its work so far is not to be found in aluminized blankets for campers but in the communication and weather satellites. Comsats are about a billion dollar a year business, and they are something that the US has a near monopoly on. Weather satellites have saved hundreds of lives and millions of dollars in damages just with hurricane tracking. For the last decade Florida has been undergoing a development boom, and part of the reason could be because people now know when to evacuate from oncoming storms. NASA's benefits to the nation come from what we can get out of space, not from R&D side-effects. John Redford DEC-Hudson ------------------------------ Date: 11 Apr 84 08:43 PST (Wednesday) From: DBraunstein.ES@Xerox.ARPA Subject: Re: Poor News Coverage In-reply-to: JordanHD.Wbst's message of Tue, 10 Apr 84 20:09 EST To: JordanHD.Wbst@Xerox.ARPA cc: Ted Anderson , XeroxSpace^.PA@Xerox.ARPA ''As far as I can tell, the reason that Pinky couldn't de-spin the MMU is: (a) The attitude control was not turned off. (b) The MMU grabber didn't fit. (c) The MMU grabber wouldn't grab.''....etc. Please watch what abbrev. you use. I think you mean the SMM (SOLAR- MAX) not MMU. Anyways, what I was able to glean from the networks and the local cable live NASA feed, was that the TPAD, (the grabber) was sucess- fully soft docked on the trunion pin, but was not hard docked. In plain English, this means that Pinky was not able to make the T-PAD lock on the trunion pin. Furthermore, because the trunion was not located at the center of gravity of the SolarMax, when he repeatedly tried to hard dock, he imparted some momentum to the spacecraft in the process. He also may have caused extra rotation by trying to stop the rotation by grabbing onto the solar panel, a much 'dirtier' way of stop the rotation. But hey, this morning I got up to watch the live cable feed, and low and behold they had already fixed the SolarMax 1-1/2 hrs ahead of schedule and were having some fun testing out the spare MMU. I think that this mission demonstrates that despite initial problems, the spirit of 'Mr. Fix-it', that began with the fateful Apollo 13 mission, through Skylab 1, still holds forth, and will carry on into the age of permanent human presence in space with the Colombus space station. David Braunstein ------------------------------ Date: 11 Apr 84 10:31:39 PST (Wed) To: Robert Elton Maas cc: KIRK.TYM@Office-2, SPACE@Mit-Mc Subject: Re: big bangs / ultimate problems From: Martin D. Katz At the end of the 19th century, Michaelson (one of the most prominent physicists of his time) said (I paraphrase from memory): Advances in physics will come in the sixth decimal place. Thus meaning that all is known and the rest of physics will be just further experiments to improve accuracy. By this time, Michaelson and Morely had done an experiment which was to be one of the keys to showing that Newtonian mechanics would not properly describe light, and thus helped lead to Special Relativity. Since the Michaelson's statement, we have had several revolutions in physics (of varying importance) including: Special and General Relativity, Quantum Mechanics, Quarks, etc. Unexplained deviations from theory, and contortions in theory, such as those at the end of the last century, currently plague physics. It is not clear whether a new revolution is needed, but statements which assert that only the first microsecond hold surprises remind me about Michaelson's assertion. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 11 Apr 84 13:00 CST From: Nichael Cramer To: space%mit-mc.arpa@csnet-relay.arpa Subject: Big Bang Source It is obvious from some of the recent queries and statements that a common, but fundamental, misunderstanding concerning the nature of the Big Bang is rampant here. It is not a question of a large fireball located at some place in an an otherwise empty universe suddenly exploding and throwing matter out through the cosmos. Rather, it is spacetime ITSELF that is expanding from an initial infinitesimal size. To use the standard high school illustration of the universe imagined as the surface of an expanding balloon, and if we further imagine a previous time when the balloon was very tiny, then to ask from where, ON THE SURFACE OF THE BALLOON, did the balloon start growing, is as meaningless as to ask where, IN THE UNIVERSE, was the sceen of the Big Bang. This is a somewhat obscure point that even some instructors and lecturers I've heard (including one unnamed Nobel laureate, whose Prize was for work in Cosmology) didn't really seem to understand. End of Lecture. NLC ------------------------------ Date: 7 Apr 84 19:38:38-PST (Sat) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: decvax!decwrl!rhea!elmer!goun @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Shuttle upside down? <*> Today's edition of The Boston Globe carries a front page photograph of the flight of Challenger with its external tank and SRBs. The vehicle is shown flying upward at about a 45 degree angle, with the orbiter ON TOP. I was under the impression that in previous flights, the vehicle flew with the orbiter upside down beneath the tank. Was this done previously but not on 41C, was the picture printed upside down, or am I mistaken? -- Roger Goun UUCP: {allegra, decvax, ucbvax}!decwrl!rhea!elmer!goun ARPA: goun%elmer.DEC@Purdue-Merlin.ARPA decwrl!rhea!elmer!goun@{Berkeley, SU-Shasta} USPS: Digital Equipment Corp., HLO2-2/H13 77 Reed Road; Hudson, MA 01749 MCIMail: RGoun Tel: (617) 568-6311 ------------------------------ Date: 7 Apr 84 9:00:41-PST (Sat) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: harpo!ulysses!allegra!alice!alb @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Challenger Nears Solar Max The Challenger today closed to within 1000 miles of the crippled Solar Maximum Mission satellite and is continuing to close at about 60 mph. Tomorrow (Sunday), the Challenger will park about 300 feet away from the satellite, and mission specialist Nelson will fly to it via MMU, stop it from spinning, and help to attach it to the RMS (after he stops the spin, the shuttle will move to within 50 feet.) Once the satellite is in the cargo bay, Nelson and van Hoften will replace a control system in the satellite. On Tuesday, Nelson and van Hoften will replace a failed electronics box, and, if the satellite thens works properly, it will be redeployed on Wednesday. ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 13-Apr-84 0304 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #166 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 166 Today's Topics: Re: Shuttle upside down? STS 41C ground to air retransmissions Challenger Prepares for Rendezvous Re: big bangs / ultimate problems add to distribution list Re: Big Bang Source Solar MAX station keeping SMM Resure Failure RMS Attempt to be Made Re: Shuttle upside down? Solar Max troubles Re: RMS Attempt to be Made Re: Big Bang ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 8 Apr 84 5:39:50-PST (Sun) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: harpo!ulysses!allegra!alice!alb @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: Shuttle upside down? In-Reply-To: Article <6960@decwrl.UUCP> Your picture is misguided. The orbiter performed its post- launch roll just as always and flew ''upside down'' ------------------------------ Date: 8 Apr 84 11:06:00-PST (Sun) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: hplabs!hao!seismo!rlgvax!cvl!louie @ Ucb-Vax Subject: STS 41C ground to air retransmissions ------------------------------ Date: 8 Apr 84 5:46:56-PST (Sun) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: harpo!ulysses!allegra!alice!alb @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Challenger Prepares for Rendezvous The Challenger closed to within 375 miles of Solar Max this morning, and the astronauts got their first visual and radar sitings of the satellite. Later, the shuttle moved to 10 miles distance. Soon, at 0929 EST, Nelson and Van Hoften will enter the cargo bay, and Nelson will begin moving towards the satellite at 1019 EST, arriving 10 minutes later. Yesterday, the astronauts successfully deployed the LDEF. ------------------------------ Date: 12 April 1984 11:35-EST From: Robert Elton Maas Subject: Re: big bangs / ultimate problems To: katz @ UCI-750A cc: SPACE @ MIT-MC, KIRK.TYM @ OFFICE-2 I'm not saying that in Physics the only remaining revelations are in the 6th decimal place. Indeed we haven't yet unified the three forces (there were four a few years go but we unified two of them) but expect to unify two of them within the next few decades (some say gravity will be unified with the rest, but I believe gravity is geometry not force and is intrinically different from the 3-->2-->1 force(s)). What I meant by what I said is that (1) the only major change in the Big Bang throey of cosmology is in the first three minutes and the final unbang or pancake or heat-death or whatever (we don't know yet), and (2) new Physics and study of the first three minutes are related. The new Physics may allow a totally new type of engineering (matter-antimatter drive, or high-density memory, or ??) once we can catalyze the conversion of the three unified forces WITHOUT needing high energy states. That would not be in the 6th decimal point in practice (engineering/technology), but it could easily be in the 6th decimal place insofar as it affects the 20 billion years after the first 3 minutes, i.e. Big Bang is unchanged, merely refined, except for first 3 minutes. ------------------------------ Date: 12 Apr 1984 1010-PDT From: LEE at SU-STAR Subject: add to distribution list To: SPACE%MIT-MC at SCORE Reply-To: LEE at SU-STAR Ted; This is my first venture out into the net, so please forgive any faux-pas. If possible, I would like to be added to the distribution list for the SPACE digest. Thank you; Emilio P. Calius (LEE%SU-STAR@SCORE) ------ ------------------------------ Date: 12-Apr-84 10:59 PST From: Kirk Kelley Subject: Re: Big Bang Source To: cramer%ti-csl.csnet@csnet-relay.arpa Cc: space@mit-mc.arpa Message-ID: <[OFFICE-2.ARPA]TYM-KIRK-4H2V2> An interesting mapping onto the surface of an expanding (pitted) balloon are the three spacial dimentions. Time is the dimention at right angles to the surface. The pits are locations of mass. Black holes make relatively deep pits. Concievably there might be some black holes that go all the way to the center of the balloon (though no further). I would expect to find the origin of a big bang somewhere near the center. Assuming a cycling universe, what would the completed solid of all of spacetime look like? Like a bowling ball with a few huge pits that represent the union of the last black holes? -- modeler of nothing ------------------------------ Date: 12 Apr 84 1022 PST From: Rod Brooks Subject: Solar MAX station keeping To: space@MIT-MC.ARPA n013 0731 12 Apr 84 AM-SHUTTLE-BLACKBOX By WILLIAM J. BROAD c.1984 N.Y. Times News Service CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. - The balky, 550-pound black box that the Challenger astronauts replaced on the satellite Solar Max Wednesday does a crucial job. It adjusts the position of the $235 million observatory so it can point its telescopes and scientific instruments with incredible precision as it speeds through space at more than 17,000 miles an hour. The black box, called the attitude control module, is one of the most advanced control systems ever built. It failed in 1980 when three fuses, each less than half an inch long, blew. The astronauts, Dr. George D. Nelson and Dr. James D. van Hoften, replaced the entire attitude control unit in a historic repair mission and fixed another system so that the solar observatory can resume its job of photographing and analyzing the mysterious storms and flares that erupt on the surface of the Sun. ''Not only are these attitude controls the most sophisticated of their kind, but they are the most important system on the spacecraft,'' said Dr. Stephen P. Maran, a scientist at the Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. ''Control is critical for all satellites,'' he added. ''They have to have it to keep from tumbling. In addition, solar panels have to be pointed at the Sun or you lose power.'' With Solar Max the job is even more demanding because the satellite has to be able to track solar flares that flash across the surface of the Sun, 93 million miles away. Many commercial satellites are maneuvered by the firing of jet thrusters. But the solar observatory needs control that is hundreds of times more accurate. According to the scientists at Goddard who designed the Solar Max, the large black box does the job by using electric motors to spin precision metal wheels. These look like large gyroscopes. There are three of them, each about 10 inches in diameter, one for each axis of desired rotation about the 13-foot-tall solar satellite. Although they look like gyroscopes, the wheels are different in a critical way. A gyroscope spins steadily and imparts stability to whatever it is attached. Ships and planes often have gyroscopes on board to help keep them steady. But the wheels on Solar Max spin only when the position of the satellite needs to be changed. They exert a precise power that is gently and accurately applied. ''The spacecraft sends out commands to those reaction wheels, which then spins them up or down,'' explained Dr. Frank J. Cepollina, the head of satellite servicing at Goddard. ''In the process, they impart momentum or take it away. And the spacecraft is basically rotated over and steered and held precisely on the target it's supposed to be on.'' In 1980, however, an unexpected glitch came up when the fuses of the system blew. The problem, according to Goddard scientists, lay in a design flaw. The fuses are big enough to carry a certain amount of electric current. But as the Solar Max was being designed, someone increased the circuitry and thus the electrical load in the attitude control without increasing the size of the fuses. ''Somebody looked and thought the fuses were big enough but they weren't,'' said Maran. Ironically, the designers had originally considered heavier fuses, not because of expected power flow but because the fuses are so tiny that designers feared they could easily be damaged during installation. In the end, the tiny fuses were used anyway. After the reaction wheels came to a grinding halt in 1980, flight controllers switched to a backup system that used magnetic torquers, which are basically short bars that can be magnetized so that they interact with the Earth's magnetic field to move the satellite very slowly. These magnetic bars were the heros earlier this week when they were able to stabilize the satellite after a spacewalking astronaut accidently put the solar observatory into a violent tumble. According to Cepollina, ''The torque bars lock on the Earth's magnetic field and progressively, as we go through the orbit, we apply current to those torque bars and they torque against the Earth's magnetic field to allow us to point the spacecraft.'' Also in the black box that was replaced Wednesday were precision star trackers, tiny telescopes that help the satellite find its position in space. ''They look out and see the stars,'' said Cepollina. ''By comparing the stars they should be looking at versus the stars they are actually seeing, they in effect say 'Ahhaaa, this spacecraft is looking here and it should be looking there.'' nyt-04-12-84 1025est *************** ------------------------------ Date: 8 Apr 84 18:49:26-PST (Sun) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: harpo!ulysses!allegra!alice!alb @ Ucb-Vax Subject: SMM Resure Failure Astronaut George Nelson today failed to dock with and stop the spin of the Solar Max satellite. The docking failure was due to a defective mechanism that was supposed to have grabbed a pin on the satellite. Instead, Nelson just bounced off, in the process inducing more motion to the already spinning satellite. A later attempt to grab the solar panels by hand and stabilize the satellite also failed, and another attempt to use the RMS of the shuttle to grasp the satellite did not work. Monday or Tuesday, the crew will make one more attempt to grab the satellite using the arm. If they fail, the mission may be cut short by one day; if they succeed, the repairs to the satellite will be done on one EVA into the bay, not two. No further spacewalks will be planned, due to a shortage of maneuvering fuel that would be used to pick up a stranded astronaut if his backpack failed. The propellant was used to make the maneuvers necessary for the RMS grapple attempts; the shortage of propellant will not endanger the reentry of the shuttle into the atmosphere. ------------------------------ Date: 9 Apr 84 3:22:38-PST (Mon) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: harpo!ulysses!allegra!alice!alb @ Ucb-Vax Subject: RMS Attempt to be Made Grond controllers at the Goddard Space Center succeeded over the night in stabilizing the SMM satellite to some extent, bringing its momentum into the range that a body can have if the RMS system is to safely grab it. They also were able to reorient its solar panels, so the satellite is out of danger from failing batteries. NASA then decided that an attempt to snare the satellite directly with the remote arm will be made, either Monday or Tuesday. A failure to grab it would mean a one-day curtailment of the mission; a success would mean a one-day extension. ------------------------------ Date: 9 Apr 84 6:10:31-PST (Mon) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: hplabs!hao!seismo!brl-vgr!ron @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: Shuttle upside down? In-Reply-To: Article <6960@decwrl.UUCP> Just reminds me of the cartoon on my door (this is the U.S. Army Ballistic Research Labs). There is a general standing on top of the shuttle shouting "How can we possibly use this for defense purposes. Those NASA dummies put the bomb bays on the wrong side." -Ron (I am not Sargeant Pinback) Natalie Please come back in to the bomb bay. OK. But this is the last time. ------------------------------ Date: 9 Apr 84 6:33:54-PST (Mon) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: harpo!db @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Solar Max troubles Did anyone notice that two networks had conflicting reasons why the dock with Solar Max was in trouble? One set of astronaut-consultants was explaining that the trouble was with the satellite attitude control system not being turned off by Goddard, and the other set was saying the problem was with the docking mechanism. By the way, does anyone know why the astronauts cant just go out to the satellite and replace the defective modules without bringing it to a stop? I suppose it could be tricky if they had to fight centrifigal force, but seems they could somehow anchor themselves. Wouldnt seem to be any worse than working on something in earth gravity, except that anything you drop would fall out on a tangent instead of down. ------------------------------ Date: 9 Apr 84 8:02:01-PST (Mon) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: hplabs!hao!seismo!brl-vgr!wmartin @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: RMS Attempt to be Made In-Reply-To: Article <2692@alice.UUCP> I managed to catch the initial failing attempts to de-spin Solar Max via network news coverage (NBC) Sunday morning, but they (of course) neglected to answer the obvious questions that came to mind: 1) Can the MMU be re-fueled for re-use while the shuttle is in orbit? I would think that this would be vitally necessary for any practical use of such a system. If it can, why didn't they just say that they would re-fuel it after it red-lined? 2) I was surprised that Pinky grabbed on the outer edge of the solar cell array to apply thrust to slow Solar Max's spin. Didn't that strain the panel attachment? It wasn't designed to do more than hold the panel, was it? Was the force applied to this joint within design specs or was this a calculated risk? As of this writing, I haven't heard or seen any later developments, except that they planned to to use the arm while Max still spun. Has the reason for the failure of the suit-attachment unit been announced yet? Will ------------------------------ Date: 9 Apr 84 12:30:50-PST (Mon) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: hplabs!hao!ward @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: Big Bang In-Reply-To: Article <6855@decwrl.UUCP> [] The notion that the universe is "open" depends on the present estimate of the mass contained in the universe. But that estimate seems to be increasing on the same curve as computing power (that is: LOTS every few years - how's that for precision). I put my money on the closed universe, though I have no bias, one way or 'tother. -- Michael Ward, NCAR/SCD UUCP: {hplabs,nbires,brl-bmd,seismo,menlo70}!hao!ward BELL: 303-497-1252 USPS: POB 3000, Boulder, CO 80307 ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 14-Apr-84 0304 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #167 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 167 Today's Topics: Refillable MMU ENTERPRISE GOES TO WORLD'S FAIR Fuses in Solar Max Fuses on Solar Max Big Bang Source re:re:Big Bang Source LDEF orbital elements Big Bangs and ceiling wax Attitude control wheels Re: NSI's Dial a Shuttle Re: STS 41C ground to air retransmissions ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 13 Apr 84 09:08:38 PST From: Willard Korfhage To: space@mit-mc Subject: Refillable MMU The MMU can be refilled in flight, according to what I have read. The reason they didn't make more extensive use of it on this flight was that the shuttle couldn't spare fuel to chase the astronaut if the MMU failed. Willard Korfhage korfhage@ucla-ats ------------------------------ From: Bob Brown Message-Id: <8404131733.AA10572@riacs.ARPA> Date: 13 Apr 1984 0933-PST (Friday) To: space@mit-mc.ARPA Subject: ENTERPRISE GOES TO WORLD'S FAIR **From the Ames Astrogram The Space Shuttle orbiter Enterprise, atop the 747 Shuttle Carrier Aircraft, began its move on March 22 from Ames Dryden to the Lousiana World Exposition. The 157,000 pound Enterprise, flown during the approach and landing tests in 1977 at Ames Dryden, will be displayed at the World's Fair from May 12 through November 11. The final leg of the 2,300 mile trip will be by barge from Mobile, Alabama, to the world's fair site on the New Orleans waterfront. The barge trip is the only viable method of transporting the DC-9 size orbiter to the New Orleans waterfront, since it is too large to transport by rail or road, particularly through the streets of New Orleans. The unusual constraints of the move allow NASA to test techniques and train personnel on methods for safely handling a Space Shuttle orbiter at sites other than Shuttle launch and landing facilities at Ames Dryden, Kennedy Space Center, Florida, and Vandenburg Air Force Base on the California Coast. Permanent structures are normally used for mating and demating the orbiter from the Shuttle Carrier Aircraft. The methods of handling and moving perfected and documented on this trip will be invaluable if an orbiter ever has to land at a contingency landing site in the future. The Enterprise is scheduled to arrive at the Lousiana World Exposition site on the New Orleans waterfront the afternoon of April 5. The transporter trailer will be offloaded and towed to a location in front of the U.S. Pavilion. There, cranes and ground support equipment will remove the Enterprise from the transporter and place the 122 foot long vehicle on its display location. At the conclusion of the fair, the Enterprise will be ferried back to Vandenberg AFB where it will be used for additional fit-and-function checks at the West Coast Shuttle launch facility. ------------------------------ Date: Fri 13 Apr 84 11:48:19-MST From: William G. Martin Subject: Fuses in Solar Max To: space@MIT-MC.ARPA cc: WMartin@SIMTEL20.ARPA The discussion in the news article regarding the use of fuses in Solar Max was completely mystifying. Why put fuses in a satellite's circuitry anyway? I could understand using circuit breakers which could be reset by solenoid under ground command, or auto-reset after some time elapsed, but why use FUSES? They whole concept of a fuse is that it is a cheap and easily replaceable unit whose self-destruction protects more valuable components in cases of failure or abnormal conditions. But when the| circuit is in orbit, and any repair is done by replacing the entire module, as we saw done in this case (not a repair technique that could be relied upon to be available, anyway, in the general case of satellite circuits!), fuses have no rational justification as far as I can determine. If they had been replaced by bus bars, or other conductive jumpers, and the active components had burned out due to the situation that caused the fuses to blow (itself doubtful, according to the article), so what? If the satellite could have been reached for fixing, the entire assembly/module would be replaced in any case. So the fuses protected nothing, and only caused problems. Can anyone offer any excuse for those fuses to have existed, or was this just poor design? Will ------------------------------ Date: 13 Apr 84 2324 PST From: Hans Moravec Subject: Fuses on Solar Max To: space@MIT-MC.ARPA I would think the fuses are to protect the power supply from being shorted out by an errant module, bringing down the rest of the system. Better to lose a module than the whole bird, esp with backup systems for the most critical functions. ------------------------------ From: John McLean Date: Fri, 13 Apr 84 14:18:35 EST To: space at mit-mc Subject: Big Bang Source I agree with Nichael Cramer that if SPACE is expanding it makes no sense to ask where the big bang occurred. However, if SPACETIME is expanding, it makes just as little sense to ask when it occurred. Nevertheless, it seems to me that dates for the big bang are given. How can this be? Thanks, John ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 13 Apr 84 11:02 CST From: Nichael Cramer To: space%mit-mc.arpa@csnet-relay.arpa cc: kirk.tym%office-2.arpa%csnet-relay.csnet@csnet-relay.arpa Subject: re:re:Big Bang Source > An interesting mapping onto the surface of an expanding (pitted) balloon are > the three spacial dimentions. Time is the dimention at right angles to the > surface... I would expect to find the origin of a big bang somewhere near > the center... > -- modeler of nothing Your second point illustrates my point exactly. i.e. that there is no point IN the universe from which the primordial fireball expanded; keeping in mind the important distinction that it is the two dimensional surface that represents the model of expanding spacetime and not the interior space enclosed by the ballon. (In point of fact, the point in the center of the balloon is 'inside' the balloon only because we poor creatures are trapped in 3-space, just as a point inside a circle appears to 'contained' by a circle to a flatlander, a point of view that looks naive to us.) HOWEVER, and more importantly, the first point you raise is precisely the issue that prompted the original message. The 2-space of the surface of the expanding balloon does NOT represent our own 3-space (with one suppressed dimension) expanding out through time. Rather, it (with obvious limitations) models an expanding spacetime with TWO dimensions suppressed. ------------------------------ Date: 13 Apr 1984 13:24-PST From: dietz%USC-CSE@USC-ECL.ARPA To: space@MIT-MC.ARPA Subject: LDEF orbital elements Does anyone know what orbit the Long Duration Exposure Facility was left in? LDEF is three stories tall; it should be easily visible. Paul Dietz dietz@usc-ecla ------------------------------ Date: 13 Apr 84 08:43 PST (Friday) From: DBraunstein.ES@Xerox.ARPA Subject: Big Bangs and ceiling wax Re: SPACE Digest V4 #166 In-reply-to: OTA@S1-A.ARPA's message of 13 Apr 84 03:04 PST To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC.ARPA cc: DBraunstein.ES@Xerox.ARPA Don't you guys ever read anything about cosmology besides what you read on the b.board. The past two years there have been many articles in scientific journals and popular science magazines (Discover, Science News, Astronomy...) about the modified Big Bang model, the Super Inflationary Model by Guth of Stanford SLAC. It's purpose it to remove any violation of casuality caused by a slowing expanding universe. This is not the forum to fully address this subject due to lack of blackboard space. But remember that physics only can make better and better approximations of what is reality and nature will always be holding the cards......tie goes to the dealer...... ------------------------------ Date: 9 Apr 84 7:25:59-PST (Mon) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: hplabs!zehntel!dual!decwrl!rhea!dvinci!fisher @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Attitude control wheels > Something I've been wondering about for a long time is why the >technology of Oberth wheels has not been much used for attitude/spin >control in space. The idea goes like this: > Inside your ship, you have a flywheel spun by a small motor. >If you start with both ship and wheel not spinning, then you can spin the >ship by turning the wheel the other way... Gyroscopes are actually used in a similar manner in (some) current spacecraft. I believe the difference is that the gyros are spun up ahead of time, either on the ground or using attitude control engines to keep the craft stable while they are spun up. Then the gyros are used as a solid something to push against to stabilize or turn the spacecraft. I don't know what the advantage of using this method is over pure attitude jets. Just less fuel? Finer control? Note that this method does not mean that no attitude engines are needed. The gyros can only absorb a certain amount of delta- (aaaaagh what is the symbol for angular momentum? p?) before they saturate and have to be "unwound" using the engines. Note: The above is only second-hand knowledge gleaned from Aviation Week etc., mainly during the Skylab reactivation and stabilization effort. If anyone has corrections or more details, feel free. Burns UUCP: ... {decvax|allegra|ucbvax}!decwrl!rhea!dvinci!fisher ARPA: decwrl!rhea!dvinci!fisher@{Berkeley | SU-Shasta} ------------------------------ Date: 9 Apr 84 17:23:33-PST (Mon) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: hplabs!hao!kpno!astrovax!ks @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: NSI's Dial a Shuttle References: A reminder to those of you on the net who do not have the special radio equipment to take advantage of the rebroadcast shuttle communications: The National Space Institute operates a "Dial-a-Shuttle" news service 24 hours a day during shuttle flights. During the past couple days of confusion on the Solar Max capture problems, it has been the best source of information I could find on up-to-the minute events. Dial-a-Shuttle plays information segments on the mission and its hardware, press conferences (live), and carries *all* spacecraft communications. The telephone number is 900-410-6272. Ma Bell charges 50 cents for the first minute, 35 cents for each additional minute you listen. As is typical of the overall space funding situation, NSI receives none of these funds. When CBS ignores shuttle flights, ABC's Jules Bergman asks his obvious questions, and NBC doesn't ask what you want - try Dial-a-Shuttle. 900-410-6272 (which happens to be 900-410-NASA) ------------------------------ Date: 9 Apr 84 14:54:17-PST (Mon) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: hplabs!zehntel!dual!bill @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: STS 41C ground to air retransmissions In-Reply-To: Article <915@cvl.UUCP> > Once again, the Goddard Amateur Radio Club will be rebroadcasting the Space > Shuttle's ground-to-air voice transmissions. The operating schedule is as > follows: Is there any way that us folks without a radio might be able to hear these rebroadcasts? Can a tape be made? Would one of you bright guys into ham radio suggest something please. Thanks. Hungry for more information, Bill Kanawyer Dual Systems 2530 San Pablo Ave. Berkeley Ca. (415) 549-3854 ext 35 {ucbvax,amd70,ihnp4,cbosgd,decwrl,fortune,zehntel}!dual!bill ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 15-Apr-84 0303 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #168 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 168 Today's Topics: Re: Solar Max troubles - (nf) Re: RMS Attempt to be Made SMM Snare Attempt Tomorrow Re: Orphaned Response - (nf) Re: STS 41C ground to air retransmissions Re: Re: RMS Attempt to be Made ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 10 Apr 84 4:28:07-PST (Tue) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: decvax!ittvax!dcdwest!sdcsvax!sdccs7!ee163aca @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: Solar Max troubles - (nf) In-Reply-To: Article <2258@harpo.UUCP> [] Can anyone tell me why NASA didn't have enough fuel for its MMUs. It seems logical to have some spare nitrogen to refuel the things with, rather than jeapordize the whole mission because they ran out of gas. I can understand running low on fuel for the manuvering (sp?) the shuttle, but for the backpacks? If all they can do is move up a few hundred yards and come back, what good are the MMUs. Oh well, at least they got the thing down with the robot arm. Paul van de Graaf sdcsvax!sdccs7!ee163aca ------------------------------ Date: 9 Apr 84 14:10:39-PST (Mon) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: harpo!ulysses!allegra!alice!alb @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: RMS Attempt to be Made In-Reply-To: Article <12@brl-vgr.ARPA> Yes, the MMU can be refueled in orbit in 20 minutes. There is also a spare MMU, already fueled, on board. The reason another attempt was not made was due to a shortage of maneuvering propellant on the shuttle itself. ------------------------------ Date: 9 Apr 84 12:30:55-PST (Mon) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: harpo!ulysses!allegra!alice!alb @ Ucb-Vax Subject: SMM Snare Attempt Tomorrow The crew of the Challenger will try tomorrow (Tuesday, the 10th) to snare the Solar Max stallite via the shuttle's RMS. If they succeed, the mission will likely be extended until Friday, in order to give the crew a full day to execute repairs on the satellite and ground con- trollers a full day to test it. ------------------------------ Date: 9 Apr 84 14:09:22-PST (Mon) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: harpo!ulysses!allegra!alice!alb @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: Orphaned Response - (nf) In-Reply-To: Article <6179@uiucdcs.UUCP> The new ID is broken down as follows: 1st digit -- last number of the fiscal year (e.g. 4 for 1984) 2nd digit -- ID of launch site (1 for KSC, 2 for VAFB) letter -- a sequence letter ------------------------------ Date: 10 Apr 84 3:24:02-PST (Tue) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: harpo!ulysses!allegra!alice!alb @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: STS 41C ground to air retransmissions In-Reply-To: Article <426@dual.UUCP> Amateur Radio rules prohibit broadcasting or rebroadcasting. A blanket waiver has been granted by the FCC to cover shuttle flights (any ham may retransmit shuttle communications if they get NASA's permission first). However, I am afraid that taping them and redistributing them would be a violation. ------------------------------ Date: 10 Apr 84 9:37:44-PST (Tue) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: ihnp4!ihlts!rjnoe @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: Re: RMS Attempt to be Made In-Reply-To: Article <2692@alice.UUCP> <12@brl-vgr.ARPA> I, too, was surprised that Nelson (I cannot seem to bring myself to call him Pinky) grabbed the solar panel at Crippen's insistence. I was watching it live and I was thinking out loud at the time that he would impart an off-axis torque to SMM by so doing. This appears to be what happened. I would think that the trunnion pin itself would be much closer to the center of mass and would be a better place to grab both in terms of torque and stress considerations. But then I wasn't up there and it's not my place to second-guess the professionals in space and on the ground. At first I also thought that the low fuel remarks referred to the MMU N2 propellant but later realized that it was the silly network people who were misleading me. (Lynn Sherr is rapidly becoming one of my least favorite network TV personalities.) Of *course* they can recharge the MMU's in under half an hour, but the OMS cannot be recharged and they still need it for a number of things before (and including) deorbit. I'm happy about the successful grab Terry Hart made with the RMS, but if they could slow down SMM from the beginning, why did they REALLY need the MMU's? Of course, we can all thank ILC Space Systems for their ultra-reliable TPAD (trunnion pin attachment device) :-) . Actually, it not only worked perfectly last shuttle mission, it tested out fine in the payload bay both before and after Nelson made his unsuccessful EVA (so I've heard). Good old Murphy! I can't wait for the next Aviation Week & Space Technology. -- Roger Noe ihnp4!ihlts!rjnoe ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 16-Apr-84 0303 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #169 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 169 Today's Topics: Re: Re: RMS Attempt to be Made Re: Oberth Wheels Re: Solar Max troubles - (nf) Re: Challenger's tight fuel budget Amateur Radio Obiter Air to Ground Rebroadcast Frequencies??? Re: Lunar artillery [sic, more like rifles shooting] Re: Re: RMS Attempt to be Made Re: RMS Attempt to be Made Re: Solar Max troubles Solar Max Q/A Re: Re: RMS Attempt to be Made ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 10 Apr 84 15:03:04-PST (Tue) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: ihnp4!drutx!houxe!hogpc!houti!ariel!vax135!floyd!cmcl2!lanl-a!jlg @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: Re: RMS Attempt to be Made In-Reply-To: Article <2692@alice.UUCP> <12@brl-vgr.ARPA>, <416@ihlts.UUCP> I don't understand why there was an expensive (and as it turn Relay-Version: version B 2.10.1 9/27/83; site hplabs.UUCP Message-ID: <5043@lanl-a.UUCP> Date: Tue, 10-Apr-84 15:03:04 PST Lines: 15 Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site houti.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site lanl-a.UUCP Message-ID: <5043@lanl-a.UUCP> Date: Tue, 10-Apr-84 18:03:04 EST ed out - Organization: Los Alamos National Laboratory Lines: 6 malfunctioning) docking device. From the pictures I saw, it should have been simple to put a sling or rope around the body of the satellite, tighten it up and hold on to that in order to supply the torque needed to despin. I can't imagine that the cladding of the satellite would be so weak that it couldn't handle the pressure of a wide strap of nylon webbing or something. Is this just an example of expensive solutions to simple problems? ------------------------------ Date: 9 Apr 84 11:26:16-PST (Mon) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: harpo!ulysses!burl!clyde!watmath!utzoo!kcarroll @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: Oberth Wheels In-Reply-To: Article <304@charm.UUCP> * The devices which you refer to as "Oberth Wheels" are in fact being employed on satellites right now, going under the name of "momentum wheels" or "reaction wheels". They are used in much the way that you describe, as angular-momentum sinks to allow for the maneouvering of the satellite about its three axes without the need for reaction jets. They are also used to "soak up" the angular momentum generated by the various torques found on orbiting satellites: gravity-gradient, solar, atmospheric, magnetic, what-have-you. The cyclic components of these torques are absorbed temporarily by the wheels, and are later vancelled when the torque reverses direction. The secular component (or DC, as opposed to AC) is absorbed until the wheel is spinning at its rated maximum speed, at which time the momentum is dumped by simultaneously despinning the wheel, and firing the satellites attitude-control thrusters to provide a balancing torque. Neat, huh? The problem with these wheels ( as with all hardware) is that they possess mass; thus, they may not be used on some satellites, if it is determined that a set of thrusters with fuel supply for the length of the mission would weigh less than the wheel system -Kieran A. Carroll ...decvax!utzoo!kcarroll ------------------------------ Date: 11 Apr 84 4:11:08-PST (Wed) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: ihnp4!houxm!homxa!osd7 @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: Solar Max troubles - (nf) In-Reply-To: Article <1191@sdccs7.UUCP>, <2701@alice.UUCP> So the MMU's fuel reserve was OK, but not the shuttle's. What good is the shuttle then? -- Orlando Sotomayor-Diaz/AT&T Bell Laboratories/201-949-1532 ....ihnp4!homxa!osd7 /Crawfords Crnr. Rd., Holmdel, NJ, 07733 ------------------------------ Date: 11 Apr 84 7:35:46-PST (Wed) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: ihnp4!ihlts!rjnoe @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: Challenger's tight fuel budget In-Reply-To: Article <1191@sdccs7.UUCP>, <2701@alice.UUCP> <161@homxa.UUCP> > So the MMU's fuel reserve was OK, but not the shuttle's. > What good is the shuttle then? > Orlando Sotomayor-Diaz ihnp4!homxa!osd7 The shuttle is being expected to do a number of extraordinary things this mission. In the first place, there was a very massive (22100 lbs.) satellite that had to be carried up to an altitude of 250 nautical miles. Already this is much higher than any shuttle had been before; STS-4 only went up to 175 nm and with no significant payload mass. I think this is also one of the biggest payloads the shuttle is expected to carry, although Spacelab might have been more. Once LDEF was deployed the shuttle had to increase apogee to 265 nm to reach SMM's present orbital altitude. Then all the station-keeping done with RCS (reaction control subsystem) takes more fuel. Not to mention how much must be kept in reserve for the event of an astronaut on EVA needing to be scooped up. But this still isn't all that the OMS (orbital maneuvering subsystem) is expected to do this mission! Plans before launch said they would go up to 285 nm with SMM still in the payload bay and redeploy it there. Of course, the OMS always has to have enough left for the deorbit burn. I think it's fantastic that the shuttle can even make it up to 300 miles, never mind all that maneuvering, orbit changing, and satellite carrying. With the exception of the TPAD, I'm very impressed with the people and the machines involved in this mission. Roger Noe ihnp4!ihlts!rjnoe ------------------------------ Date: 11 Apr 84 13:30:47-PST (Wed) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: hplabs!tektronix!orca!shark!philb @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Amateur Radio Obiter Air to Ground Rebroadcast Frequencies??? So I don't have to ask again. Are there a standard set of amatuer radio (non-amateur???) frequencies that are used to rebroadcast the air (space) to ground communications? Are these same freqs. used for every shot??? Phil Biehl Tektronix ------------------------------ Date: 11 Apr 84 15:45:24-PST (Wed) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: hplabs!tektronix!orca!shark!hutch @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: Lunar artillery [sic, more like rifles shooting] In-Reply-To: Article <546@sri-arpa.UUCP> I hate to ask this, since it seems painfully obvious. Why wouldn't intervening mountains get in the way? The moon is not a polished sphere. Also, the gravity of the moon is acting as a continuous acceleration on the bullets. It would seem to me that IF a bullet were fired in JUST the right path to achieve an orbit, that it would last maybe two or three orbits (at that altitude) before it decayed and fell to ground. Hutch ------------------------------ Date: 11 Apr 84 8:13:20-PST (Wed) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: hplabs!sdcrdcf!darrelj @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: Re: RMS Attempt to be Made In-Reply-To: Article <2692@alice.UUCP> <12@brl-vgr.ARPA> <416@ihlts.UUCP> On Wednesday morning's news, they reported discovery of a fiberglass fiber on the sattelite's trunion pin, and this was the cause of the inability to dock. They also showed some film of the astronauts rehearsing the repairs (I had been out of the room, but rehersal became obvious when a flock of air bubbles rolled past the camera lens). The repair is sufficently large (at least working inside a space suit) that they are expected to be exhausted at the end of the day. -- Darrel J. Van Buer, PhD System Development Corp. 2500 Colorado Ave Santa Monica, CA 90406 (213)820-4111 x5449 ...{allegra,burdvax,cbosgd,hplabs,ihnp4,sdccsu3,trw-unix}!sdcrdcf!darrelj VANBUER@USC-ECL.ARPA ------------------------------ Date: 10 Apr 84 9:29:04-PST (Tue) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: hplabs!sdcrdcf!trwrb!trwspp!brahms @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: RMS Attempt to be Made In-Reply-To: Article <2692@alice.UUCP> <12@brl-vgr.ARPA> [}{] > 1) Can the MMU be re-fueld for re-use while the shuttle is in orbit? Yes, it can and will be. > 2) I was surprised that Pinky grabbed on the outer edge of the solar > cell array to abbly thrust to slow Solar Max's spin. Didn't that > strain the panel attachment? It wasn't designed to do more than hold > the panel, was it? Was the force applied to this joint within design > specs or was this a calculated risk. This option was discussed during pre-flight. It was an option that would be left up to the astronauts to decide. Oh, and as you can see, it could handle the additonal stress. I'm not sure, however, if it is was a design issue or not. However, NASA being the way they are, I doubt that they would do something that had a chance a breaking something. -- Brad Brahms usenet: {decvax,ucbvax}!trwrb!trwspp!brahms arpa: Brahms@USC-ECLC ------------------------------ Date: 10 Apr 84 9:18:50-PST (Tue) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: hplabs!sdcrdcf!trwrb!trwspp!brahms @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: Solar Max troubles In-Reply-To: Article <2258@harpo.UUCP> [}{] > By the way, does anyone know why the astronauts cant just go out to the > satellite and replace the defective modules without bringing it to a > stop? Remember the law: For ever action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. Therefore, any force applied to the satilite would cause the satlite to start moving (rotating) in the opposite direction. Not what you really want to happen. It is a lot easier to work on an object the is secured. -- Brad Brahms usenet: {decvax,ucbvax}!trwrb!trwspp!brahms arpa: Brahms@USC-ECLC ------------------------------ Date: 12 Apr 84 7:29:31-PST (Thu) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: hplabs!zehntel!dual!decwrl!rhea!dvinci!fisher @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Solar Max Q/A 1) Re fuel: My understanding was that the fuel problem was in the forward RCS system (i.e. the attitude jets), not the OMS (orbital maneuvering system) engines. This problem was caused by all the station-keeping with Solar Max which was done on Sunday during the first unsucessful attempt to grab it. 2) Re Ground Control stabilization: 2.1 The Boston Globe (via wire service?) reported that Goddard had actually managed to bring Solar Max to a stop between Sunday and Tuesday, but that Houston requested that it be respun (at about .5 the rate it originally had) because (a) that was how the astros had practiced a non-MMU grapple, and (b) the thing might have been stopped with the grapple pin pointed away from the direction from which the shuttle was rendezvousing. Rotation meant that the shuttle could just wait for it to come around rather than wasting fuel to move around the satellite 2.2 Someone at a shift-change news conference asked the question of why they used the MMU to begin with. The answer was (a) they wanted to have several options available, and (b) with the MMU, they would have had a lot more control of the craft. In addition, at another time it was stated (somewhere) that the ground spin-down was rather risky because they had to use electromagnetic torqueing against the earth's mag. field. This required a LOT of power, and since the solar cells weren't pointed properly at the sun, there was danger that Solar Max's batteries would run down. They lucked out in that the batteries lasted long enough for them to both get the rotation/wobble slowed and get the s-cells pointed sunward. 3. The TPAD problem: Again in the Globe, it was reported that Solar Max had a small pin holding its insulation on which has close to the trunion pin. This pin could have interfered with the TPAD. Burns Fisher UUCP: ... {decvax|allegra|ucbvax}!decwrl!rhea!dvinci!fisher ARPA: decwrl!rhea!dvinci!fisher@{Berkeley | SU-Shasta} ------------------------------ Date: 10 Apr 84 14:45:03-PST (Tue) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: harpo!ulysses!smb @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: Re: RMS Attempt to be Made In-Reply-To: Article <416@ihlts.UUCP> Speaking of TV idiots -- to my mind the best launch coverage I've seen from them was the one at 3:00 am. Whoever was covering it for NBC just *shut up* and let Mission Control and the astronauts do the talking. That was the only launch I didn't listen to on 900-410-6272. ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 17-Apr-84 0303 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #170 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 170 Today's Topics: Shuttle Crew Work Schedule SMM Rescued Re: Re: RMS Attempt to be Made Fuses and Reaction Wheels Re: Oberth Wheels gosh its really big isn't it. New uniforms (T-shirts) SMM Redeployed Getting it back to the Cape Re: Lunar artillery [sic, more like rifles shooting] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 10 Apr 84 9:50:51-PST (Tue) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: pur-ee!wd9get @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Shuttle Crew Work Schedule Can anyone tell me what the working hours are for the shuttle crew? Do they work a 9 to 5 schedule (and is that UT, EST, etc.)? I would like this info to help me catch the down-link rebroadcasts since they aren't transmitting during sleep periods. Keith Brandt pur-ee!wd9get ------------------------------ Date: 10 Apr 84 16:20:18-PST (Tue) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: harpo!eagle!mhuxl!ulysses!allegra!alice!alb @ Ucb-Vax Subject: SMM Rescued The crew of the Challenger today successfully plucked the failing Solar Max satellite from orbit today, using the RMS in the cargo bay. The satellite was placed in the bay and repairs will be conducted tomorrow (Wednesday). If the satellite works, it will be released on Thursday; otherwise it will be brought back to Earth. ------------------------------ Date: 10 Apr 84 16:23:24-PST (Tue) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: harpo!eagle!mhuxl!ulysses!allegra!alice!alb @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: Re: RMS Attempt to be Made The operation with Nelson and the MMU thrust was (thought to be) necessary to stop the spin of the satellite. This spin was not stopped from the ground; rather, the tumbling and wobbling was stopped. The satelite was still spinning when it was grabbed with the RMS. ------------------------------ Date: 16 Apr 1984 08:35:12 EST From: METH@USC-ISI Subject: Fuses and Reaction Wheels To: SPACE@MIT-MC cc: METH@USC-ISI The resaon you use fuses over circuit breakers is just because fuses are one-shot deals. If your circuit is faulty you don't wan't it reset inadvertantly by some glitch command. The reason you fuse circuits is as was stated in another message, you'd prefer to permanently take out a single circuit rather that fail the entire satellite. I heard an (unconfirmed) story that Solar Max's fuses blew because the gas contained in them diffused into space resulting in a lower current rating than the (well behaved) circuit they were in. Regarding reaction wheels, Space Telescope will do its maneuvering using reaction wheels and magnetic torquers. The latter will permit the reaction wheels to operate at low average rotation rate (there are four of them so the torquers can despin the wheels with no net angular momentum change) to reduce power consumption and jitter. The reason one does not want to use reaction jets of any kind in such a vehicle, is beacuse the effluent produces molecular contamination which could deposit on the telescope mirror, severely degrading performance. -Sheldon Meth The BDM Coorporation (METH@ISI.ARPA) ------------------------------ Date: 5 Apr 84 15:52:55-PST (Thu) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: harpo!ulysses!allegra!karn @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: Oberth Wheels Reaction wheels are indeed widely used in spacecraft that require three-axis stabilization. Examples include Skylab, the NOAA TIROS-N series of polar weather satellites, and the RCA Satcom geostationary communications satellites. They are combined with gas thrusters or magnetic torquing systems to allow for momentum dumping when necessary. Phil ------------------------------ Date: Mon 16 Apr 84 14:26:34-PST From: Michael Moore Subject: gosh its really big isn't it. To: space@SU-CSLI.ARPA ------- ------------------------------ Date: 12 Apr 84 9:46:36-PST (Thu) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: decvax!ittvax!dcdwest!sdcsvax!bmcg!cepu!scw @ Ucb-Vax Subject: New uniforms (T-shirts) *<-DDT ... I though that this was fixed already, What's goin' on here. This morning (12-Apr-84) on Paul Harvey I heard that the 41-C Crew are now wearing T-shirts with the Logo: ACE Satellite Repair Pickup and Delivery -- Stephen C. Woods (VA Wadsworth Med Ctr./UCLA Dept. of Neurology) uucp: { {ihnp4, uiucdcs}!bradley, hao, trwrb, sdcsvax!bmcg}!cepu!scw ARPA: cepu!scw@ucla-locus location: N 34 06'37" W 118 25'43" ------------------------------ Date: 12 Apr 84 14:25:09-PST (Thu) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: harpo!ulysses!allegra!alice!alb @ Ucb-Vax Subject: SMM Redeployed Solar Max today was successfully redeployed, and all of its systems succeeded in locking in on the sun. ------------------------------ Date: 13 Apr 84 6:52:50-PST (Fri) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: ihnp4!ihuxa!johnnyr @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Getting it back to the Cape This may be a naive question, but I thought I'd ask, just to satisfy my curiosity... Since they landed this morning out at Edwards instead of at the Cape, they will be piggy-backing the shuttle on their 747. Has any thought ever been given to refueling in CA. and flying it back under its own power? I guess what my question really asks is... Does the shuttle have the capability to fly under power (well throttled down) as a normal airplane. Is there enough control, too much power ....??? Probably a stupid question, I know. But just a random thought that stuck in my head this morning. John Rosenberg AT&T Technologies ihnp4!ihuxa!johnnyr Naperville Il. ------------------------------ Date: 13 Apr 84 6:21:07-PST (Fri) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: harpo!ulysses!gamma!pyuxww!pyuxa!wetcw @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: Lunar artillery [sic, more like rifles shooting] In-Reply-To: Article <546@sri-arpa.UUCP>, <692@shark.UUCP> [] Aw, come on gang! It was only a funny story. If your going to read SF, you gotta learn to suspend belief once in awhile. I thought the punch line of the story was a gas. I had an image of the moon-walkers diving and running all over the place every time the shells came whizzing by. Then, going to Congress to ask for enough money to buy a computer to be able to predicte the next passage of the shells was a laugher. Loosen up, don't get so serious about the shell problem. Imagine Laurel and Hardy all dressed up in space suits, carring a large sheet of glass between them when one of the shells goes through the glass. Can't you see the possibilities for humorous situations? ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 18-Apr-84 0303 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #171 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 171 Today's Topics: Re: Moon bullets Solar Max repair Space Station Talk in L.A. April 28 Re: RMS Attempt to be Made ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 11 Apr 84 8:14:25-PST (Wed) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: hplabs!zehntel!zps!raymond @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: Moon bullets Maybe the lunar infantrymen were JUMPING before pulling their triggers, thereby obtaining enough altitude at the point of injection... ------------------------------ Date: 11 Apr 84 8:29:48-PST (Wed) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: hplabs!zehntel!dual!decwrl!rhea!mother!hughes @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Solar Max repair One of the reasons for bringing Solar Max into the shuttle bay is to connect it with the shuttle's on board compter and power systems. When the repairs are completed GSFC will use the shuttle's computer link (presumably via TDRS) to reload the satellites memory and then to test various functions before releasing it. gary UUCP: ...{ decvax | allegra | ucbvax }!decwrl!rhea!mother!hughes ARPA: hughes%mother.DEC @purdue-merlin.ARPA reality?: DEC, ZKO1-2/C07, 110 Spit Brook Rd, Nashua NH 03062 ------------------------------ Date: 17 Apr 1984 18:22:49 PST Subject: Space Station Talk in L.A. April 28 From: Alan R. Katz To: bboard@USC-ISIF, bboard@USC-ECL, space@MIT-MC, sf-lovers@RUTGERS cc: katz@USC-ISIF (For Los Angeles people) The next lecture in the OASIS/L5 lecture series is: SPACE STATION CONCEPTS George Butler Director of Advanced Programs McDonnell Douglas Astronautics Kinsey Auditorium, California Museum of Science and Industry 7:00 pm, April 28, 1984 (Saturday) The history and the future of the concept of having a permanently manned US space station (which President Reagan asked for in his State of the Union address) will be discussed. We should also be showing the mission film of the last Space Shuttle Mission (with great scenes of MMU backpack spacewalks). Admission is free, the meeting starts at 7:00pm in the Kinsey Auditorium of the California Musuem of Science and Industry, across from USC and next to the Colosseum. (Note: Our next scheduled speaker, Dr. Krafft Ehricke, who was to speak on May 19 had to cancel due to health reasons. Instead, we will be having Robert Salkeld talking on "Returning to the Moon." on the same day, still at Rockwell International. I will send another notice out with details next month.) Alan ------------------------------ Date: 12 Apr 84 22:00:56-PST (Thu) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: ihnp4!inuxc!iuvax!notes @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: RMS Attempt to be Made One person noted that the NBC coverage of the night launch was the best he'd seen. I would like to call his (and everybody's) attention to the fact that they were not your run-of-the-mill announcers or correspondents, but the team of "NBC News Overnight". That was just one example of those folks doing it right. Other examples were showing clips from foreign news agencies, including Tass. Just wanted to bring Linda and Bill and the show some post-mortem credit... -- Allan Pratt ...ihnp4!inuxc!iuvax!apratt ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 19-Apr-84 0304 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #172 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 172 Today's Topics: Re: Triskaidekaphobia Info Wanted Re: MMU films Re: How to solve NASA's budget problems IMAX camera onboard Challenger Re: Solar Max troubles - (nf) IRAS orbit, nautical miles Re: IRAS orbit, nautical miles ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 18 Apr 84 15:45:00-EST (Wed) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: ihnp4!houxm!hogpc!houti!ariel!vax135!floyd!cmcl2!acf4!kenner @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: Triskaidekaphobia ... this would have been STS-13 under the old numbering scheme. ------------------------------ Date: 18-Apr-84 11:04 PST From: William Daul OAD / TYMSHARE / McDonnell Douglas Subject: Info Wanted Re: MMU films To: SPACE-Enthusiasts@mit-mc.arpa Cc: weeks@ames-vmsb.arpa Message-ID: <[OFFICE-2.ARPA]TYM-WBD-4I677> Anyone know of any showings of the MMU space jets (as oppossed to space walks) in the San Francisco Bay area? Thanks, --Bill ------------------------------ Date: 12 Apr 84 13:43:21-PST (Thu) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: harpo!ulysses!burl!clyde!watmath!utzoo!henry @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: How to solve NASA's budget problems In-Reply-To: Article <536@sri-arpa.UUCP> Rich Wales comments: As far as I can tell, there is no way to earmark such a contribution as being specifically for NASA. And I don't know whether there is any other mechanism available for contributing directly to this or that fed- eral agency. (I suspect there is not.) I believe this is correct. Several years ago, when the Viking Fund was collecting money to try to keep the Viking Lander operating, they found that it wasn't at all easy to donate the money for that purpose and only that purpose. I think it was finally done by a complex circumlocution involving having the V.F. contract with NASA for a specific piece of research. It "happened" that the group that was keeping the Lander running was the logical group to do this particular bit of research, and that it was something they wanted to do anyway. I don't vouch for all the details, but I think that's roughly how it worked. I believe it was the first time anything like this had been done. -- Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology {allegra,ihnp4,linus,decvax}!utzoo!henry ------------------------------ Date: 11 Apr 84 5:16:20-PST (Wed) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: harpo!seismo!rlgvax!cvl!umcp-cs!aplvax!mh @ Ucb-Vax Subject: IMAX camera onboard Challenger According to the talk overheard via the shuttle Goddard retransmission link, it would appear that there is an IMAX camera onboard the shuttle. As of the recovery of the Solar Max Satellite, they had "shot-up 4 rolls of IMAX film" and anticipate "shooting another 2 rolls during tomorrows repair effort." Does anyone know anything further about this? klr!milo!aplvax ------------------------------ Date: 15 Apr 84 1:07:36-PST (Sun) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: decvax!genrad!mit-eddie!barmar @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: Solar Max troubles - (nf) In-Reply-To: Article <1191@sdccs7.UUCP>, <2701@alice.UUCP> <93@brl-vgr.ARPA> -------------------- From: wmartin@brl-vgr.ARPA (Will Martin ) But what irked me was that NOBODY (advisors, newscritters, whatever) ever mentioned refueling the MMU -- they talked about using the OTHER MMU. -------------------- I think I was watching CNN when this was going on, and I distinctly remember them mentioning refueling the MMU that was being used. -- Barry Margolin ARPA: barmar@MIT-Multics UUCP: ..!genrad!mit-eddie!barmar ------------------------------ Date: 15 Apr 84 23:22:58-PST (Sun) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: harpo!ulysses!allegra!karn @ Ucb-Vax Subject: IRAS orbit, nautical miles The orbit used by IRAS in which the orbital plane maintains the same angle to the sun throughout the year is a very common one, and is the reason for the existance of satellite launching facilities at Vandenburg. These are called "sun synchronous" orbits, and many satellites have used them including weather, scientific, amateur radio, spy, earth resources, etc. The basic idea is to utilize the equatorial "bulge" of the earth to precess the orbit plane so that it makes one complete revolution each year, following the apparent motion of the sun around the earth. The use of "nautical" miles is an anachronistic embarassment that should have been dropped years ago. My contact at JSC says that a lot of the software they're using in the shuttle program was taken directly from the Apollo program and they just never updated it. By the way, the kilometer has a nice geophysical significance to it - the meter was originally defined as 1/10000 the distance between the north pole and the equator. It has since been redefined (and the earth measured more accurately) but it is still a good approximation. Phil ------------------------------ Date: 15 Apr 84 23:25:16-PST (Sun) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: harpo!ulysses!allegra!karn @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: IRAS orbit, nautical miles In-Reply-To: Article <2411@allegra.UUCP> Er, make the "the KILOmeter was originally defined as 1/10000 of the distance..." Phil ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 20-Apr-84 0303 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #173 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 173 Today's Topics: Re: Getting it back to the Cape Re: Getting it back to the Cape ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 15 Apr 84 7:18:20-PST (Sun) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: hplabs!sdcrdcf!akgua!clyde!burl!ulysses!allegra!alice!alb @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: Getting it back to the Cape In-Reply-To: Article <474@ihuxa.UUCP> 1) The main engines cannot be reused until they are refurbished, a process that takes a week or two. (Note, the countdown can be halted at any point up until the SRB's ignite; if it is halted AFTER the main engines ignite, the launch would be delayed for about two weeks until the ME's could be refurbished (basically cleaned up).) 2) There is no launch facility at Edwards, and the shuttle cannot take off horizontally. 3) Which do you think costs more? A jumbo jet ride across the country, using commercial airline fuel, or a shuttle ride, consuming half a million gallons of liquids hydrogen and oxygen (not to mention the cost of an external tank)? ------------------------------ Date: 15 Apr 84 16:04:42-PST (Sun) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: decvax!mcnc!akgua!clyde!watmath!watcgl!dmmartindale @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: Getting it back to the Cape In-Reply-To: Article <2717@alice.UUCP> In addition to the cost considerations, a normal airplane is much better suited to manoevering in the atmosphere. It is designed to fly level, something which the shuttle is not. And it can abort a poor approach and go around again. ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 21-Apr-84 0303 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #174 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 174 Today's Topics: Re: Challenger's new launching attitude Ben Bova's story Trivia question Re: Getting it back to the Cape Re: Getting it back to the Cape Re: how to grab a satellite Re: Getting it back to the Cape ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 16 Apr 84 17:04:35-PST (Mon) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: hplabs!ames-lm!al @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: Challenger's new launching attitude In-Reply-To: Article <12075@sri-arpa.UUCP> Launch attitide has not changed. Tidbit: the shuttle stack turns upside down shortly after lift off so the pilot can see the horizon and orient himself in case of an abort. ------------------------------ Date: 20 Apr 1984 7:47-PST From: dietz%USC-CSE@USC-ECL.ARPA To: space@MIT-MC.ARPA Subject: Ben Bova's story I'm sure Bova knew, when he was writing the story, how physically implausible it was. The story was meant to be humorous. ------------------------------ Date: 20 Apr 1984 7:49-PST From: dietz%USC-CSE@USC-ECL.ARPA To: space@MIT-MC.ARPA Subject: Trivia question Rockets, radiators, etc. work best at high temperatures. What substance has the highest known melting point (at reasonable pressures)? ------------------------------ Date: 22 Apr 84 19:52:00-EST (Sun) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: ihnp4!drutx!houxe!hogpc!houti!ariel!vax135!floyd!cmcl2!acf4!lwe3207 @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: Getting it back to the Cape In-Reply-To: Article <474@ihuxa.UUCP> Nf-From: acf4!lwe3207 Apr 15 22:52:00 1984 [] (More response.) I didn't consider the fact that the 747 is to the Shuttle as a glider is to an F-14: i.e., the glider has more lift. So clearly the 747 has a lot more appropriate lift for the lower atmosphere, and hence is more fuel- efficient a priori than a powered shuttle. The corollary being that if you tried to drop a 747 at 17K-knots out of orbit, it would melt while the wings were tearing off. (I guess the cabin pressurization in an airliner comes from the jet engines intake/compressors, so the passengers in said 747 would also have suffocated by that time. But it would be amusing to film such an event: you could ferry the parts of the 747 up into orbit, assemble it, and then "push it backwards" until it was below orbital velocity. Bugs Bunny could be inside, searching madly for the airbrakes, while robots with parachutes jumped out into the flaming void.) I guess this will always be a tradeoff in aero vs. space craft, until the materials technology for the skin (heat-reflective) and infrastructure (tough but light) are so good that you can make an orbiter capable of re-entry which also has a sufficiently good lift coefficient to be economical for self-powered flight in the lower atmosphere. Lars Ericson cmcl2!acf4!lwe3207 ------------------------------ Date: 19 Apr 84 16:43:00-PST (Thu) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: ihnp4!drutx!houxe!hogpc!houti!ariel!vax135!floyd!cmcl2!acf4!lwe3207 @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: Getting it back to the Cape In-Reply-To: Article <474@ihuxa.UUCP> Nf-From: acf4!lwe3207 Apr 15 19:43:00 1984 I think the point to be made, which I don't think the person asking the question realized, is that the Shuttle doesn't have an (or much of an?) internal fuel tank for the main engines -- enough I guess to do a de-orbit burn, but not enough to lift off horizontally. Since the thing is aerodynamic, however, I don't see why it shouldn't be able to take off horizontally. Clear the "rotation speed" would be rather high -- 275 knots? -- but you could do it, perhaps by putting a tank into the payload bay. The fact that burning the engines leaves lots of crud in them is a matter of technology, and presumably in the future, rocket engines will be designed so that you can burn them a couple of times in the low atmosphere before you have to wipe the gunk out. -- Lars Ericson cmcl2!acf4!lwe3207 ------------------------------ Date: 15 Apr 84 10:58:45-PST (Sun) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: ihnp4!drutx!houxe!hogpc!houti!ariel!vax135!floyd!cmcl2!lanl-a!unm-cvax!nmtvax!hennessy @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: how to grab a satellite In-Reply-To: Article <12110@sri-arpa.UUCP> <> >From: Richard M. King > > > Anyone know why the following wouldn't work? (or whether it would) > > 1> set MMU to be inertially stabilized > > 2> grab a solar panel of slowly rotating satellite > > 3> hold on until satellite stops > > By my calculations (assuming a moment of 500 slug-feet) the satellite >has angular momentum that would require 10 foot-pound-seconds to stop. >Doesn't really seem to me to be beyond the reach of normal human strength, >even in a space suit (and he's supposed to be an amateur weight lifter). It >also doesn't seem likely to me that this kind of force would break off the >panels. Just holding on to the satelite by a human being would not cause the satelite to stop. Instead the astronaut and the satelite would both come to a new equililbrium where they rotate with a constant angular velocity. This new velocity would be VERY difficult to calculate since the moment of inertia of the system is extremely non-trivial. I suppose the astronaut could give the satelite a "shove" in one direction to attempt to slow the rotation, which would also give him/her a large rotation in the opposite direction. To get the above calculation there must be a object to give the angular rotation to and a source of friction. Both happen on good ol' Earth where it could be done but not in free fall. Sincerely; Greg Hennessy ..ucbvax!unmvax!nmtvax!hennessy ------------------------------ Date: 19 Apr 84 16:45:00-PST (Thu) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: ihnp4!drutx!houxe!hogpc!houti!ariel!vax135!floyd!cmcl2!acf4!lwe3207 @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: Getting it back to the Cape In-Reply-To: Article <474@ihuxa.UUCP> Nf-From: acf4!lwe3207 Apr 15 19:45:00 1984 [<- Added RAID, same response -- sorry for duplicates.] I think the point to be made, which I don't think the person asking the question realized, is that the Shuttle doesn't have an (or much of an?) internal fuel tank for the main engines -- enough I guess to do a de-orbit burn, but not enough to lift off horizontally. Since the thing is aerodynamic, however, I don't see why it shouldn't be able to take off horizontally. Clearly the "rotation speed" would be rather high -- 275 knots? -- but you could do it, perhaps by putting a tank into the payload bay. The fact that burning the engines leaves lots of crud in them is a matter of technology, and presumably in the future, rocket engines will be designed so that you can burn them a couple of times in the low atmosphere before you have to wipe the gunk out. -- Lars Ericson cmcl2!acf4!lwe3207 ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 22-Apr-84 0303 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #175 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 175 Today's Topics: Re: Getting it back to the Cape IMAX Camera on Shuttle Re: Solar Max Mission Failure/Success more Oberth wheels more on Solar Max ACS Re: Re: big bangs EVA's painful on fingers Tangerine Dream Someone was looking for TD albums.Some are available in U.S.only as imports Klaus Schulze left Tangerine Dream for Ash Ra Tempel.recorded 2 albums,AshRA Tempel(|st) an Re: Triskaidekaphobia Re: EVA's painful on fingers - (nf) Request info on Wash DC Area Re: Nautical miles - definition Re: Solar Max Mission Failure/Success ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 16 Apr 84 9:43:50-PST (Mon) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: harpo!ulysses!allegra!alice!alb @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: Getting it back to the Cape In-Reply-To: Article <11700002@acf4.UUCP> The shuttle does not use its main engines for the deorbit burn, a misconception you seem to hold. It uses its orbital maneuvering system. ------------------------------ Date: 16 Apr 84 6:06:06-PST (Mon) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: hplabs!hao!seismo!rlgvax!cvl!umcp-cs!aplvax!mh @ Ucb-Vax Subject: IMAX Camera on Shuttle This got lost when our netmail system went on vacation: According to the talk overheard via the shuttle Goddard retransmission link, it would appear that there is an IMAX camera onboard the shuttle. As of the recovery of the Solar Max Satellite, they had "shot-up 4 rolls of IMAX film" and anticipate "shooting another 2 rolls during tomorrows repair effort." Another roll of IMAX film was used during the repair of the Solar Max and the sixth roll was going to be used to shoot "earth scenes". It appears that there was a ground crew at Mission Control and that they moved to Kennedy to film the landing. Unless they had a back-up unit at Edwards... ...aplvax!milo!klr ------------------------------ Date: 16 Apr 84 14:12:39-PST (Mon) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: harpo!ulysses!allegra!jdd @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: Solar Max Mission Failure/Success In-Reply-To: Article <12153@sri-arpa.UUCP> From: AC%MIT-OZ@MIT-MC.ARPA Newsgroups: net.space Subject: Solar Max Mission Failure/Success Date: Tue, 10-Apr-84 08:52:33 EST From: Anthony J. Courtemanche But the way it is now, we may run out of fuel and have to end the mission as an 80% failure, it's gonna be close as I type this on Monday evening. ...The failure was (as I understand it) only with the device that was to attach with the pin on the Solar Max. To me that indicates only that a small piece of machinery isn't up to par. Yes, well, but the fact that they'd found only one "small" problem \so far/ doesn't mean they mightn't have found fifty or sixty more later. Being able to get close to a satellite may still a long ways from being able to repair one. Cheers, John ("Space Cadet") DeTreville Bell Labs, Murray Hill ------------------------------ Date: 21 Apr 84 14:09:56-PST (Sat) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: menlo70!sri-unix!knutsen @ Ucb-Vax Subject: more Oberth wheels As a matter of fact, if memory serves, one of the components replaced on Solar Max was an Oberth-style atitude control system... Andrew ------------------------------ Date: 21 Apr 84 15:11:54-PST (Sat) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: menlo70!sri-unix!knutsen @ Ucb-Vax Subject: more on Solar Max ACS a013 12-Apr-84 07:34 AM-SHUTTLE-BLACKBOX By WILLIAM J. BROAD c.1984 N.Y. Times News Service CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. - The balky, 550-pound black box that the Challenger astronauts replaced on the satellite Solar Max Wednesday does a crucial job. It adjusts the position of the $235 million observatory so it can point its telescopes and scientific instruments with incredible precision as it speeds through space at more than 17,000 miles an hour. The black box, called the attitude control module, is one of the most advanced control systems ever built. It failed in 1980 when three fuses, each less than half an inch long, blew. The astronauts, Dr. George D. Nelson and Dr. James D. van Hoften, replaced the entire attitude control unit in a historic repair mission and fixed another system so that the solar observatory can resume its job of photographing and analyzing the mysterious storms and flares that erupt on the surface of the Sun. ''Not only are these attitude controls the most sophisticated of their kind, but they are the most important system on the spacecraft,'' said Dr. Stephen P. Maran, a scientist at the Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. ''Control is critical for all satellites,'' he added. ''They have to have it to keep from tumbling. In addition, solar panels have to be pointed at the Sun or you lose power.'' With Solar Max the job is even more demanding because the satellite has to be able to track solar flares that flash across the surface of the Sun, 93 million miles away. Many commercial satellites are maneuvered by the firing of jet thrusters. But the solar observatory needs control that is hundreds of times more accurate. According to the scientists at Goddard who designed the Solar Max, the large black box does the job by using electric motors to spin precision metal wheels. These look like large gyroscopes. There are three of them, each about 10 inches in diameter, one for each axis of desired rotation about the 13-foot-tall solar satellite. Although they look like gyroscopes, the wheels are different in a critical way. A gyroscope spins steadily and imparts stability to whatever it is attached. Ships and planes often have gyroscopes on board to help keep them steady. But the wheels on Solar Max spin only when the position of the satellite needs to be changed. They exert a precise power that is gently and accurately applied. ''The spacecraft sends out commands to those reaction wheels, which then spins them up or down,'' explained Dr. Frank J. Cepollina, the head of satellite servicing at Goddard. ''In the process, they impart momentum or take it away. And the spacecraft is basically rotated over and steered and held precisely on the target it's supposed to be on.'' In 1980, however, an unexpected glitch came up when the fuses of the system blew. The problem, according to Goddard scientists, lay in a design flaw. The fuses are big enough to carry a certain amount of electric current. But as the Solar Max was being designed, someone increased the circuitry and thus the electrical load in the attitude control without increasing the size of the fuses. ''Somebody looked and thought the fuses were big enough but they weren't,'' said Maran. Ironically, the designers had originally considered heavier fuses, not because of expected power flow but because the fuses are so tiny that designers feared they could easily be damaged during installation. In the end, the tiny fuses were used anyway. After the reaction wheels came to a grinding halt in 1980, flight controllers switched to a backup system that used magnetic torquers, which are basically short bars that can be magnetized so that they interact with the Earth's magnetic field to move the satellite very slowly. These magnetic bars were the heros earlier this week when they were able to stabilize the satellite after a spacewalking astronaut accidently put the solar observatory into a violent tumble. According to Cepollina, ''The torque bars lock on the Earth's magnetic field and progressively, as we go through the orbit, we apply current to those torque bars and they torque against the Earth's magnetic field to allow us to point the spacecraft.'' Also in the black box that was replaced Wednesday were precision star trackers, tiny telescopes that help the satellite find its position in space. ''They look out and see the stars,'' said Cepollina. ''By comparing the stars they should be looking at versus the stars they are actually seeing, they in effect say 'Ahhaaa, this spacecraft is looking here and it should be looking there.'' nyt-04-12-84 1025est ------------------------------ Date: 15 Apr 84 18:15:00-PST (Sun) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: pur-ee!uiucdcs!liberte @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: Re: big bangs In-Reply-To: Article <12126@sri-arpa.UUCP> Some possibilities: More big bangs before and after our big bang. More big bangs outside of our big bang, in outer big bang space. Little big bangs inside our big bang - black holes? BIG big bangs that include our big bang as one of several little big bangs. Daniel LaLiberte, U of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, Computer Science {moderation in all things - including moderation} ------------------------------ Date: 16 Apr 84 15:15:00-PST (Mon) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: pur-ee!uiucdcs!uiuccsb!jackson @ Ucb-Vax Subject: EVA's painful on fingers I read in some paper that when the astronauts execute an EVA, that their fingers turn black and blue. It also said quoted the astronauts as saying that when they came back into the shuttle after an EVA that their fingers felt like they had been beaten with a hammer. Why does this happen? I would think the pressurization of their suits would keep this from happening. Can anybody explain why EVA's are so painful on the fingers? Dan Jackson ..pur-ee!uiucdcs!uiuccsb!jackson ------------------------------ Date: 16 Apr 84 22:57:45-PST (Mon) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: harpo!ulysses!burl!clyde!akgua!psuvax!psuvm%d3u @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Tangerine Dream Someone was looking for TD albums.Some are available in U.S.only as imports Electronic Meditation 1970 C.Schnitzler,Klaus Schulze,Edgar Froese TD,s first LP psychedelis,intense jamming,dirges,energy,classicalia,rock! Shifts moods violently sometimes.Perhaps their best.Not easy listening Alpha Centauri/Atem reissue of these two LPs as double set.Not as intense,but still classical space sounds like a composition project AC sounds like SF soundtrack.Atem sounds like classical musicians went crazy.rec early 70,s Zeit c.73 largo in four movements meditative shifting sounds thes are the early period,music for enthusiasts.EM is about a journey through a burning brain.the others are space explorations. midperiod includes Pheadra(74),Rubicon(75),Ricochet(live75),Stratosfear(77), Encore(US tour77),Sorcerer These have Mike Oldfield influence,esp Rubicon. lotsa sequencer riffs. More mainstream than earlier LPs,but still not usual for even progressive rock. Cyclone(78) this even has lyrics and rock drumming ,recomended for prog rock Force Majeur (79) good mix of earlier with newer directions.Good for intro toTD Tangram(80?) has schmaltzy sections,getting ready for next phase. Thief soundtrack,Exit these are even more "commercial"but still too out for so me "progressive" tastes. White Eagle Clear,distinct sounds replace rolling magestic scapes Logos live,Hyperborea their last two lps compilation 3record setbox has a side of previously unreleased material Also look for lps by Schulze,Froese,Schnitzler,Baumann ------------------------------ Date: 17 Apr 84 23:13:16-PST (Tue) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: harpo!ulysses!burl!clyde!akgua!psuvax!psuvm%d3u @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Klaus Schulze left Tangerine Dream for Ash Ra Tempel.recorded 2 albums,AshRA Tempel(|st) an d Join Inn.Plays drums and synthisizer 1971&1973 |970 TD"s Electronic Meditation wild mood changes Early lps are usually less prominantly rhythmic,esp Cyborg and Picture Music Others:Blackdance,Irrlicht,Moondawn(has intense heavy rock section) Timewind self explanatory these lps exemplify free "floating" music,like early TD Body Love I&II I is called Moogetique in US lotsa sequencer X,Live excellent lps Arthur Brown is on live Dig It commercial for KS Trancefer is good ------------------------------ Date: 16 Apr 84 12:45:47-PST (Mon) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: sun!qubix!lab @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: Triskaidekaphobia In-Reply-To: Article <2712@alice.UUCP> <11700001@acf4.UUCP> Said July 13 birthday occurs on FRIDAY the 13th this year... -- The Ice Floe of Larry Bickford {decvax,ihnp4,ucbvax}!{decwrl,sun}!qubix!lab decwrl!qubix!lab@Berkeley.ARPA ------------------------------ Date: 17 Apr 84 4:07:53-PST (Tue) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: harpo!ulysses!allegra!alice!alb @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: EVA's painful on fingers - (nf) In-Reply-To: Article <6800004@uiuccsb.UUCP> It's because they have to do maneuvers requiring great dexterity inside heavy, inflexible (though improved) gloves. They likened the job to threading a needle wearing boxing gloves. All the rubbing of their fingers in the gloves is irritating. ------------------------------ Date: 17 Apr 84 6:35:15-PST (Tue) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: ihnp4!ihuxl!dcn @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Request info on Wash DC Area I will be visiting Washington D.C. this summer and I would like to visit any interesting sites near this area. I saw Goddard Spaceflight Center on the map, and the city of Langley (but no little box for a NASA center). I am also interested in the Patuxent Naval Air Test Center, but I don't know if it's open to visitors or if there's anything to see there. Any other suggestions? Assume I already know about the obvious places like the Air & Space Museum. Dave Newkirk, ihnp4!ihuxl!dcn ------------------------------ Date: 16 Apr 84 13:11:26-PST (Mon) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: harpo!ulysses!burl!clyde!watmath!utzoo!dciem!ntt @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: Nautical miles - definition In-Reply-To: Article <12155@sri-arpa.UUCP>, <2411@allegra.UUCP>, <24122@allegra.UUCP> David Smith (David.Smith@cmu-cs-ius.arpa) notes: ... Given the coordinates of origin and destination, spherical trigonometry can be used to produce the arc length between them, expressed in angular measure (vertex of angle at center of earth). This arc is historically measured in degrees, minutes, and seconds. The nautical mile is defined to be one arc-minute over the surface of the earth. I will tiptoe quietly away from the question of how the earth's oblateness is handled. Phil Karn (allegra!karn) adds: By the way, the kilometer has a nice geophysical significance to it - [it] was originally defined as 1/10000 the distance between the north pole and the equator.* It has since been redefined** (and the earth measured more accurately) but it is still a good approximation. *Via Paris. **Three times! (artifact, wavelength of light, speed of light) Well, in at least some countries, the nautical mile has also been redefined. According to a publication I have from the Canadian Standards Association, the nautical mile is now defined as : 1852 meters.* *Actually they spell it metres, but let's not get into that. Mark Brader ------------------------------ Date: 16 Apr 84 10:53:06-PST (Mon) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: harpo!ulysses!burl!clyde!watmath!utzoo!kcarroll @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: Solar Max Mission Failure/Success In-Reply-To: Article <12153@sri-arpa.UUCP> * I disagree with the optimistic opinion expressed a while ago, that the recent shuttle mission would have been a great success even if the solar maximum satellite hadn't been able to be captured or repaired. While it is true that many interesting things were demonstrated during this mission (high apogee orbits, release of the heavy LDEF), the repair of the solar max. satellite was the first attempt NASA has made to back up one of the claims which were used to justify the expense of the shuttle: that it would make launching satellites less espensive in the long run, by providing the ability to retreive damaged ones, and either repair them or return them to earth. Thus, satellites could be designed with less redundant systems, dropping their cost and weight; also, insurance premiums on launches could drop, as a satellite which failed on orbit could be returned to earth for repair at a fraction of its original cost, and hence insurance companies would spend less on such satellites, and hence could charge less in the way of premiums. The current shuttle mission cost in the range of $20M to $30M, I beleive. That'd be a small price to pay for the repair of the solar max. satellite (the actual cost was higher, as $50M or so of hardware had to be provided for the mission). If the attempt failed, though, NASA'd have (a) a still-broken solar observatory, and (b) an extra $80M missing from it's 1984 operating budget: nothing for something! They'd then have to consider sending up yet >another< repair mission, for another $20-30M, which woud have a similar chance of failure to that of the first mission. They'd likely not chance it, for fear of the bad press if the >second< mission failed as well (the press can be awfully fickle). The scenario in which the repairs failed utterly would be a very bad one: the shuttle would have been proven >un<-reliable in its satellite-repair role., and a lot of the economic justification for the shuttle would evaporate. Of course, this is all academic now, as the repairs to the errant satellite were carried out in fine fashion, hurrah! Now rescue missions for the palapa and westar satellites are being considered; perhaps insurance rates >will< go down for launches in the near future, rather than up. We should realize that the success of the recent shuttle mission was rather a momentous thing, and be glad (especially seeing how close it come to failure). -Kieran A. Carroll ...decvax!utzoo!kcarroll ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 23-Apr-84 0304 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #176 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 176 Today's Topics: Re: IMAX camera - (nf) Re: Shuttle Main Engine stats request Shuttle Main Engine stats request Re: IMAX camera Re: Challenger's new launching attitude Re: Getting back to the Cape The "grabbing onto Solar Max" Problem Re: Trivia Question Re: Re: big bangs ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 18 Apr 84 1:18:44-PST (Wed) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: hplabs!zehntel!bsmith @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: IMAX camera - (nf) #N:zehntel:2400001:000:162 zehntel!bsmith Apr 18 00:39:00 1984 Isn't IMAX the wide screen process used in filming 'Hail Columbia' (The Smithsonian movie about the shuttle)? If so, could that mean we may soon see a sequel? ------------------------------ Date: 19 Apr 84 16:45:00-PST (Thu) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: ihnp4!houxm!hogpc!houti!ariel!vax135!floyd!cmcl2!acf4!lwe3207 @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: Shuttle Main Engine stats request In-Reply-To: Article <11700005@acf4.UUCP> Nf-From: acf4!lwe3207 Apr 17 19:45:00 1984 [] Oops...for "RMS" read "OMS". ("Orbital Maneuvering System" vs. "Cherry Picker".) ------------------------------ Date: 17 Apr 84 16:43:00-PST (Tue) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: ihnp4!houxm!hogpc!houti!ariel!vax135!floyd!cmcl2!acf4!lwe3207 @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Shuttle Main Engine stats request Nf-From: acf4!lwe3207 Apr 17 19:43:00 1984 [] Someone noted that the Shuttle doesn't use its main engines for de-orbit burn. I thought it would because I thought the RMS was used primarily for direction-changing. Which is used for "station- keeping", i.e., in-orbit altitude changes? How much fuel is actually on-board for the main engines, and what does that translate to in full-power burn time (or some other useful metric)? What percentage do the main engines contribute to the thrust required to achieve orbit? (I assumed that the solid rockets provided the majority.) Someone told me that the Shuttle can't fly level, and that it doesn't have enough lift to take off horizontally, even if it had the necessary thrust. Is this true? If not, what are the actual "back-of-the-envelope" estimates for the amount of main engine fuel required for the Shuttle to take off horizontally under its own power? Does it "break even"?: i.e., would the poundage of fuel required to make it take off make it too heavy to take off? Just curious, Lars Ericson ..cmcl2!acf4!lwe3207 ------------------------------ Date: 18 Apr 84 9:09:03-PST (Wed) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: hplabs!hao!seismo!rick @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: IMAX camera In-Reply-To: Article <1418@zehntel.UUCP> I saw Hail Columbia (for the nth time) with some friends at the Air and Space Museum last week. This time, there was a little "promo" before the film that said in essence "look for more IMAX footage of the columbia in space 'coming soon'". I'm not sure what the exact wording was, but it definaitely said coming soon. ---rick ------------------------------ Date: 18 Apr 84 20:04:34-PST (Wed) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: hplabs!hao!kpno!astrovax!ks @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: Challenger's new launching attitude In-Reply-To: Article <12075@sri-arpa.UUCP> <205@ames-lm.UUCP> The many references to the erroneous Boston Globe photo of the Challenger's recent liftoff seem to be missing an important point. If the thrusting force of a rocket is to impart translational acceleration (and not angular acceler- ation) to the vehicle, then it must thrust through its center of mass. Close inspection of the aft region of the space shuttle orbiter will show that the main engines' neutral position points their thrust vector *below* the plane of the orbiter's wings, as well as in the orbiter's forward direction. This is necessary because the combined orbiter/external tank assembly has a center of mass more nearly inside the tank than the orbiter. (ET take-off weight is something like 1 million pounds, whereas the orbiter's is around 250,000 pounds). The main engines must gimbel during the ascent to keep the thrust vector constantly pointing through the orbiter/ET center of mass; remember that the ET mass is constantly changing due to fuel expenditure during the ascent. The bottom line is that the orbiter *must* be below the tank during liftoff so that the combined system accelerates upward and downrange. Any configuration with the orbiter above the tank could never produce thrust in the direction of the local vertical (which, after all, is where the shuttle is designed to go.) Including the effects of SRB thrust direction (and aerodynamic forces) will complicate the discussion for the first two minutes of flight, but essentially produce comparable reasoning. Karl Stapelfeldt Princeton U. (and NASA ROTC) ------------------------------ Date: 18 Apr 84 5:29:06-PST (Wed) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: hplabs!zehntel!dual!decwrl!rhea!raven1!bluejay @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: Getting back to the Cape On getting the shuttle back to the cape - How about putting a fuel tank in the cargo bay? Then you could blast your way back to the Cape (of course, the wear & tear on the main engines may make this impractical). And I wouldn't want to be behind it in my Piper waiting for takeoff ("Caution wake turbulence" indeed :-) ) Winging my way across the net from ...decvax!decwrl!rhea!raven1!Bluejay ------------------------------ Date: 18 Apr 84 6:45:48-PST (Wed) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: hplabs!zehntel!dual!decwrl!rhea!dvinci!fisher @ Ucb-Vax Subject: The "grabbing onto Solar Max" Problem 1) Several previous notes have talked about whether a person would be strong enough to stop Solar Max's rotation. Here is a point that no one seems to have mentioned: Assuming that Pinky gets himself beside the solar panel at 0 relative velocity, then hangs on an shuts off his MMU jets, his grip/arms/etc would have to supply a certain amount of centripital force to keep him from flying out at a tangent to the spinning spacecraft. The amount of force depends on the rotation rate, the radius of the spin, and the mass of Pinky/MMU. I don't know how much that amounts to, but since he was able to rendezvous with the panel, we have to assume that force is less than or equal to the force that his jets can give, which is only a few kg. (I think I heard around one pound per jet). Now suppose while he is hanging on, he cranks up his jets to produce force in the same direction (tangential). The jet's force simply adds to the centripital force, with the result being 2*(a few kg), certainly within range of even a weak person's muscles. Thus, I don't think that an astronaut's strength has anything to do with the problem. 2) >Why not just hold on and use attitude hold? >>It would come to some difficult-to-predict equilibrium, not stopped Sure it would if he had no propulsion, but he does! I contend that if he could hold on long enough, AND he had enough fuel, AND he could exert force on the solar panels in all directions to counter all the various precession movements the thing might make, that he could stop it. Undoubtedly, though, one of the various conditions above could not be met, and thus the wobble. Thank heaven for magnetic torqueing and clever ground controllers! Burns ------------------------------ Date: 22 Apr 1984 2006 PST From: Doug Freyburger Subject: Re: Trivia Question To: space-enthusiasts@mit-mc Reply-To: DOUG@JPL-VLSI.ARPA It stricks me that diamond has the highest melting point. There are chemistry problems with it for rockets, though. There is a metal, Hafnium I think, that's up in pretty high range, too. Doug ------ ------------------------------ Date: 17 Apr 84 9:13:30-PST (Tue) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: ihnp4!ihuxl!esj @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: Re: big bangs In-Reply-To: Article <12126@sri-arpa.UUCP> Just as an aside, Hoyle was the last diehard proponent of the Steady-State Theory (matter being created continuously from nothing/virtual pairs/whatever). Narlikar is a disciple of Hoyle. -- "Don't you ever get lonely up here, Talby?" ihnp4!ihuxl!esj ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 24-Apr-84 0303 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #177 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 177 Today's Topics: Re: Orbital plane change nautical miles again Re: SPACE Digest V4 #175 Re NASA funding Re: Getting back to the Cape Re: Solar Max troubles - (nf) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Monday, 23 April 1984 12:18:43 EST From: David.Smith@cmu-cs-ius.arpa To: Robert Elton Maas cc: space@mit-mc.arpa Subject: Re: Orbital plane change Message-ID: <1984.4.23.15.47.55.David.Smith@cmu-cs-ius.arpa> In my original message about using aerodynamic lift for orbital plane changes, I neglected an important fact. If L/D is 4, then you get four times the effective thrust for an equivalent rate of fuel expenditure. But this does not mean that the fuel requirement is one-quarter what it would have been. Rather, it means that for equivalent delta-V, the required mass ratio is the fourth root of what it would have been. This follows from the fact that deltaV = Vexhaust * ln(mass ratio). Let's take the problem of transferring between the orbits of two space stations, each with orbital inclination of 28.5 degrees (latitude of Cape Canaveral), but launched 12 hours apart, so that the tug has to make a 57 degree plane change. As I recall, that came out to about a 16,400 mph delta-V. And let's be old fashioned and use chemical rockets. The specific impulse of hydrogen-oxygen rockets is often listed as 425 "seconds." This is 425 seconds of kilogram-force per kilogram of propellant. Make that 425 * 9.8 = 4165 newton-seconds per kilogram. Use the formula of f = ma = m dv/dt, and consider that instead of accelerating a finite block of exhaust over some time, we kick out an infinitesimal of mass at instantaneous exhaust velocity. This changes the force formula to f = Ve dm/dt. Combine this with 4165 n-s/kg, and we get Ve = 4165 meters per second, or 9319 mph. If we want to get that 16400 mph with pure propulsion, then the mass ratio must be exp(16400/9319) = 5.81. Using the L/D=4 maneuver, the mass ratio must be 5.81**(1/4), or 1.55. The aerodynamic plane change cuts the required propellant by a factor of 8.7. This analysis ignores other factors, such as: mass of wings reduced mass of tanks fuel to lower and raise perigee fuel and structure that would have been required to put 8.7 times the propellant into orbit (either from the earth or the moon) -- David Smith ------------------------------ Date: Monday, 23 April 1984 12:33:43 EST From: David.Smith@cmu-cs-ius.arpa To: space@mit-mc.arpa Subject: nautical miles again Message-ID: <1984.4.23.17.21.1.David.Smith@cmu-cs-ius.arpa> As I noted, historical use of the nautical mile is based on historical use of degrees, minutes, and seconds to measure angles. Maybe we could get rid of nautical miles by forcing everyone to measure angles in grads (right angle = 100 grad). On the surface of the earth, 1 grad = 100 km. But I'm not holding my breath. David Smith P.S. It seems to me that the most natural angular measure for public use would be the "piradian," defined as 1 piradian = pi radians. On the surface of the earth, 1 millipiradian = 20 km. DRS ------------------------------ Date: 23 Apr 84 13:32:20 PST (Monday) From: Cherry.es@XEROX.ARPA Subject: Re: SPACE Digest V4 #175 In-reply-to: OTA's message of 22 Apr 84 03:03 PST To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC.ARPA cc: Cherry.es@XEROX.ARPA re: Tangerine Dream Albums There is a boxed set of 3 or 4 (I can't remember which) tangerine albums released on the Virgin label and has catalog number VBOX2 (or maybe VBOX3) {VBOX1 is the Mike Oldfield boxed set of 4 albums}. It is an import only album and is usually available through record stores which have a GOOD selection of imports. I have seen this set in the LA area and the Denver area. Good Luck Bob ------------------------------ Date: 17 Apr 84 8:14:00-PST (Tue) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: pur-ee!uiucdcs!parsec!ctvax!uokvax!emjej @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re NASA funding It has long been my opinion that the way to fund a lunar colony is to go to the Enormous State University Alumni Association and tell them how awesome football can be in 1/6 gee... :-` (half serious?) James Jones ------------------------------ Date: 19 Apr 84 6:35:18-PST (Thu) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: ihnp4!inuxc!ralph @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: Getting back to the Cape In-Reply-To: Article <7182@decwrl.UUCP> Well, this is an interesting concept, but I don't think it will fly (pun intended, of course). The shuttle is a veritable flying brick, and you can't carry enough fuel onboard to make it fly from point A to point B like a conventional airplane. Ralph Keyser AT&T - CP inuxc!ralph ------------------------------ Date: 10 Apr 84 18:59:36-PST (Tue) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: harpo!ulysses!allegra!alice!alb @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: Solar Max troubles - (nf) In-Reply-To: Article <1191@sdccs7.UUCP> There was plenty of fuel for the MMU's. It was (is) the shuttle that was (is) running out of propellent. ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 25-Apr-84 0302 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #178 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 178 Today's Topics: Re: spinoffs Re: Solar Max Mission Failure/Success Re: The "grabbing onto Solar Max" Problem BIG BANG Re: Trivia Question Re: Shuttle landings & Orlando International What engines are what. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 19 Apr 84 19:49:45-PST (Thu) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: ihnp4!houxm!hogpc!pegasus!hocse!dls @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: spinoffs I believe that you are making some incorrect points about the nature of research in Japan. MITI does NOT sponsor pure research or straight development, but hews to an intermediate zone of high payoff, high potential work some where in the middle, such as the construction of supercomputers. In fact, MITI programs usually have built on basic research done in Britain and the US. I agree that NASA should not be justified via spinoffs. NASA's goal should be the exploration and development of space, not the production of frying pans. Unfortunately, NASA's goals are politically determined, rather than guided by a rational, step by step progess toward the commercial use of space. The construction of a space station is a welcome turn toward a more measured, results oriented program as opposed to one with an emphasis on "firsts" and "spectaculars." We have an entire agency in this country for funding basic reseach(NSF) with a budget of over one billion dollars. What america needs is the technology base to permit industry to exploit the possibilities present in space exploration. NASA is a techonology oriented agency, and is ideally suited to providing this base. Giving money to many small, high-tech firms will result in much duplication of effort and dilution of effect. The govenment is ill-suited to the task of deciding which firms to fund in any case. ------------------------------ Date: 20 Apr 84 8:36:23-PST (Fri) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: ihnp4!astrovax!elt @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: Solar Max Mission Failure/Success With an operation as large the Shuttle program and with the complexity and arbitrary nature of modern accounting systems, it is almost impossible to say what the "true" cost of a Shuttle mission is in any meaningful sense. You can bet it is a hell of a lot more than they claim when they're trying to make it sound like a good deal though. They even admit that they are not amortizing the development costs which could well far exceed the other expenses at this point. From a scientific point of view, the Shuttle could probably repair every scientific satellite in the sky for free, and it would not make up for the damage its cost over runs did to scientific programs during the 70's. Ed astrovax!elt ------------------------------ Date: 19 Apr 84 5:29:36-PST (Thu) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: decvax!ittvax!dcdwest!sdcsvax!bmcg!russ @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: The "grabbing onto Solar Max" Problem My understanding, according to AvWeek articles, is that the MMU has only an attitude-hold mode, not an inertial position hold mode. The attitude-hold mode was critical for the dock-and-halt maneuver since the docking point was relatively near the man-sattelite center of gravity. At that position, nearly all motion is rotational, rather than translational. ...Russ Schnapp ------------------------------ Date: 24 Apr 84 08:30 PST (Tuesday) From: DBraunstein.ES@XEROX.ARPA Subject:BIG BANG Re: SPACE Digest V4 #175 To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC.ARPA cc: DBraunstein.ES@XEROX.ARPA With regards to the on going discussions on BIG BANGS, anybody really interested should look at this months Scientific American, there is an excellent article on the Inflationary model of the universe, by the originator of the theory, Guth. It provides some interesting insights on the origin of the observable universe, and hints at the possibility that the observable universe is only a fraction of the whole universe!!!!!!!. David (Eyes to the Sky) Braunstein ------------------------------ Date: 24 Apr 1984 8:27-PST From: dietz%USC-CSE@USC-ECL.ARPA To: space@MIT-MC.ARPA cc: doug@JPL-VLSI.ARPA Subject: Re: Trivia Question I've heard the highest melting material is hafnium carbide, with a melting point of 4500 C (7100 F). Paul Dietz (dietz@usc-ecla) ------------------------------ Date: 20 Apr 84 10:54:18-PST (Fri) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: hplabs!tektronix!tekchips!wm @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: Shuttle landings & Orlando International In-Reply-To: Article <1237@ucf-cs.UUCP> Well, shouldn't that be Orlando Intergalactic Airport, then? Wm Leler 503/627-5151 wm.Tektronix@csnet-relay {ucbvax|allegra|decvax|ihnp4}!tektronix!wm ------------------------------ Date: 20 Apr 84 6:57:48-PST (Fri) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: decvax!decwrl!rhea!dvinci!fisher @ Ucb-Vax Subject: What engines are what. NO! There is absolutely no fuel left on board for the SSMEs (Space Shuttle Main Engines) after the ET (External Tank) drops. The SSMEs are not started again until the next launch. As a sanity check on this assertion, think of what you would have to do to save any reasonable quantity of liquid H2 and liquid O2. (Insulation, high pressure tanks, etc etc). Also think of how little energy is actually required to start the reentry process as compared to the amount required to get up into orbit to begin with. Using the SSMEs for deorbit does not make sense! Here are the major engines on the shuttle and their acronyms (in order of power): SRBs (Solid Rocket Boosters) - millions of pounds thrust. Used only during first (1.5?) minutes after launch, then dropped off and recovered. SSME (Space Shuttle Main Engines) - 10**5s of pounds thrust. Used from launch until just before orbital insertion. Draws fuel from ET (external tank) which is dropped just after the SSMEs stop. Not used again until the next launch. OMS (Orbital Maneuvering System) - 10**3s of pounds (?) thrust. Used to insert the shuttle into a reasonable orbit after the SSMEs stop. (OMS-1 and OMS-2 [OMS-1 was omitted during the last mission, because of the unusual trajectory/burn time planned for the SSMEs-required for the unusually high orbit]) Also used for orbital changes during the mission (e.g. rendezvous etc.), AND FOR DEORBIT BURN (retrofire for us old-timers). RCS (Reaction Control System) (isn't every rocket?). - Small thrust. Used to change or maintain orbiter attitude while on orbit. Also can be used to make small orbital corrections for station-keeping or final phases of rendezvous. Also used during the early phases of reentry for attitude control in various combinations with the control surfaces depending on the thickness of the atmosphere. RMS (Remote manipulator system). The "robot arm". Not an engine. Burns (picky picky) Fisher UUCP: ... {decvax|allegra|ucbvax}!decwrl!rhea!dvinci!fisher ARPA: decwrl!rhea!dvinci!fisher@{Berkeley | SU-Shasta} ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 26-Apr-84 0304 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #179 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 179 Today's Topics: Why are SSMEs on SS? Re: SPACE Digest V4 #178 Shuttle landings Re: Big Bang Re: Request info on Wash DC Area Re: Shuttle landings & Orlando International Re: What engines are what. Re: spinoffs ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 25 Apr 1984 09:55-EST Subject: Why are SSMEs on SS? From: MHARRIS@BBNF To: Space@MIT-MC Cc: MHarris@BBNF Message-ID: <[BBNF]25-Apr-84 09:55:22.MHARRIS> So it's probably obvious, but not to me: if the Shuttle Main Engines are used only with the external tank, why aren't they //mounted\\ on the tank? ------------------------------ Date: 25 Apr 1984 09:42-PST Subject: Re: SPACE Digest V4 #178 From: Craig E. Ward To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC Message-ID: <[USC-ISIF]25-Apr-84 09:42:06.WARD> This issue contains two items that I can not let by without some comment. To ihnp4!houxm!hogpc!pegasus!hocse!dls @ Ucb-Vax: Re: spinnoffs Of course NASA can not be justified on spinnoffs alone. This is just one of the reasons for a vigorous space program. The argument centered on the questions of how quickly the space program accelerated the development of these technologies and its cost effectiveness. Your message was a good statement of another reason for a strong space program; however, you should not underestimate the value of "firsts" and "spectaculars". To ihnp4!astrovax!elt @ Ucb-Vax: Re: Solar Max Mission Failure/Success It is unfortunate that people who attempt to develop a reasonable scientific view of the natural universe so often loose sight of humanity's interaction with it. It is out write silly to maintain that shuttle cost over runs did any damage to scientific programs in the 70's. The causes were (and are) political. The supporters of scientific research were not strong enough to defend and extend the R&D parts of the budget. How much of the "cost over runs" were because NASA used the lowest estimate in order to get by short-sighted congressmen and presidents? (For that matter, how much of the military aspects of shuttle where paid for my the military? Probably not much. It was a big win for them to have NASA pay for it). How many science projects died in committee because some other lobby got to the congressman first? The scientific community can not blame the shuttle for its own failures. ------------------------------ Date: 25 Apr 84 1726 PST From: Ross Finlayson Subject: Shuttle landings To: space@MIT-MC.ARPA n503 2154 24 Apr 84 BC-SHUTTLE-04-25 By William Hines (c) 1984 Chicago Sun-Times (Independent Press Service) WASHINGTON - If planners at Mission Control in Houston have their way, there will be no more space shuttle landings at NASA's Florida launching base until next winter at the earliest. Four reasons - including Florida's notoriously fickle weather - were cited in a memo, now making its way up through the bureaucracy, that proposes ending the next five or six shuttle flights at Edwards Air Force Base, in the California desert. This is where the shuttle Challenger landed April 12 after mission commander Robert L. Crippen got a last-minute orbital waveoff due to rapidly deteriorating weather at Cape Kennedy. The Houston planners have proposed ''to baseline Edwards AFB as the nominal end of mission landing site for flights 41-D through 51-B,'' according to the memo. The next flight after 51-B is now scheduled for launching Dec. 22, using the shuttle Discovery, which will make its maiden trip into orbit in June. A desire to improve weather forecast capabilities, to improve the shuttle's landing ability under low-visibility conditions, to demonstrate the craft's landing in a crosswind and ''to correct nosewheel steering deficiencies'' were reasons given for the proposal. Crippen was taken by surprise at a televised press conference when asked about the change of landing site. He said he knew of planners' concerns over the Florida weather, but added, ''I am not aware of any nosewheel steering deficiencies.'' Crippen, the most experienced pilot in the space shuttle program (with three flights out of a total of 11 to his credit) also said he did not see how demonstrating fully automatic landing capability would help solve problems of sudden changes in the Florida weather. Only one shuttle flight has actually touched down at the $27.3 million, three-mile airstrip that was built especially to reduce the expense and turnaround time involved when Florida-launched missions end in California. The 2,500-mile piggyback return of a space shuttle on top of a specially rigged Boeing 747 jumbo jet costs several hundred thousand dollars and takes roughly five days to prepare for and carry out. END ------------------------------ Date: 20 Apr 84 8:27:13-PST (Fri) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: decvax!linus!jgb @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: Big Bang > Here is an interesting question posed by a friend. It is believed >that we live in an expanding universe that was created from an very small >very dense and very hot 'point' that let go around 20 billion years ago. >There are two outcomes of this. One being that this event was a one time >thing and the universe is open. That is that it will keep expanding until >entropy sets in and the stars die out and that is the end of it. The other >theory is that the universe is an oscillating one. That is it expands, and >after some time it contracts again into that 'point' and the big bang starts >over again with a new universe with new phyisical laws and constants. > I tend to subscribe to the latter theory since the contraction of >the universe into a primordal 'point' that goes off again makes some >sense. If the universe is a one time occurance, then one can say that >perhaps the first line in the bible explains it all .... In the beginning >there was light ! ...... > harpo!jrl harpo!jrl is entitled to this opinion, but I can't help noticing the absurdity of this reasoning. Since we haven't sufficient information about the density of the universe, the only valid, scientific statement we can make is that we don't yet know which theory gives a more accurate description of the universe. A scientist doesn't "subscribe" to a theory because he likes its philosophical consequences. In this case harpo!jrl seems to favor the perpetual contraction theory merely because the alternative theory resembles too much the account given in the bible. As a point of information, the first line of the Bible reads: "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." -- Jonathan G. Bressel ARPA: linus!jgb@mitre-bedford UUCP: ...{decvax,utzoo,philabs,security,allegra,genrad}!linus!jgb ------------------------------ Date: 17 Apr 84 16:20:57-PST (Tue) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: decvax!mcnc!philabs!cubsvax!rocky2!cmcl2!floyd!whuxle!spuxll!abnjh!u1100a!u1100s!dad @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: Request info on Wash DC Area [] > I found Goddard Space Flight Center and the city of Langley > but no little red box for a NASA Center There's a good reason for the lack of a red box on Langley, Virginia. Langley, VA is the home of the CIA, not Langley Research Center. Langley Research Center is in Hampton, VA (near Norfolk and Newport News). The Research Center is co-located with Langley Air Force Base, which is easier to find on most maps. Meanwhile back in DC: NASA Headquarters are across the street from the National Air & Space Museum. Doug Davey (ex-NASA Langley employee) Bell Communications Research Piscataway, NJ ------------------------------ Date: 20 Apr 84 18:55:35-PST (Fri) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: harpo!ulysses!allegra!alice!alb @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: Shuttle landings & Orlando International In-Reply-To: Article <1237@ucf-cs.UUCP> As an interesting aside: If the shuttle were not able to land at KSC after completing its deorbit burn (for such a catastrophe as an accident on the runway (weather and chase planes taking off and landing) leaving debris that would not be cleared), it would land at none other than Orlando International Airport. As a matter of fact, the shuttle can land at any airport with a runway of 15,000 feet or more. ------------------------------ Date: 20 Apr 84 19:36:52-PST (Fri) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: ihnp4!houxm!hogpc!houti!ariel!hou5f!hou5g!hou5h!hou5a!hou5d!mat @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: What engines are what. In-Reply-To: Article <7252@decwrl.UUCP> I believe that the SRB's each generate about 2.7 million lbs (what's that in Newtons?) of thrust. The three ``main engines'' contribute about another 1.4 million lbs. Total: A little over 7 million lbs. This is assuming the second generation SRBs and the 104% thrust liquid engines. Compare this with the Saturn V used on the last moon shot. Total thrust from five engines: about 7,780,000 lbs. The center engine was either a little more or less powerful than the others in order to avoid both excess stress to the structure of the booster and a troublesome reverse-direction gas flow under the booster. The main booster and second stage put 300,000 lbs in earth orbit! We've got to take the shuttle a bit further before it will be really ready to pave the way into space. -- from Mole End Mark Terribile (scrape..dig) hou5d!mat ,.. .,, ,,, ..,***_*. ------------------------------ Date: 20 Apr 84 18:05:17-PST (Fri) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: decvax!minow @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: spinoffs In-Reply-To: Article <210@ames-lm.UUCP> You forgot Tang, the astronaut's favorite imitation orange juice. But seriously folks, NASA inventions are oriented towards NASA's goals, which aren't necessarily the best goals for the rest of American industry. For example, consider solar power cells. NASA needs high output per cell (also low mass) and high reliability. According to an All Things Considered report, a Japanese company licensed a solar cell technology from an American company that didn't have very good efficiency, but was dirt cheap. They build a pilot plant and, in order to get some use out of the resulting cells, began to sell solar-powered calculators. The obvious manufacturing-productivity things happened: by getting a product to market, they subsequently improved the process yield, price, and efficiency far beyond the American originator's abilities. There are even rumors of photovoltaic roofing tile. NASA is a good idea, but there are mundane needs that it cannot solve. Martin Minow decvax!minow ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 27-Apr-84 0304 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #180 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 180 Today's Topics: Main Engines Re: Why are SSMEs on SS? Space Archive laser disk #2 - (nf) Re: Shuttle landings & Orlando International Re: spinoffs Shuttle Propulsion Specs Airspace during landing. L5 Re: solar cells Re: Fuses and Reaction Wheels Re: spinoffs Re: Wernher von Braun and shuttle Re: Shuttle Main Engine stats request ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Alan Parker Date: Thu, 26 Apr 84 10:39:04 EST To: space at mit-mc Subject: Main Engines They are not mounted on the ET because they cost big bucks and the ET is lost after launch. To build them to be recovered would probably add cost and weight. Remember, the main point of the Shuttle was for as much as possible to be resusable and for time between launches to be minimized. -Alan ------------------------------ Date: 26 Apr 84 10:11:55 PST (Thursday) From: lynn.es@XEROX.ARPA Subject: Re: Why are SSMEs on SS? To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC.ARPA cc: MHarris@BBNF.ARPA, lynn.es@XEROX.ARPA "if the Shuttle Main Engines are used only with the external tank, why aren't they //mounted\\ on the tank?" The shuttle main engines are mounted on the Shuttle rather than the External Tank so they can be brought back for reuse. The tank is relatively cheap and expendable. Tossed at nearly orbital speed, it is destroyed on reentry, and so would the engines be if they were mounted on the tank. /Don Lynn ------------------------------ Date: 19 Apr 84 7:23:00-PST (Thu) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: pur-ee!uiucdcs!convex!sheppard @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Space Archive laser disk #2 - (nf) The second Space Archive laser disk is available now. I just picked it up at the local Videoland for $39.95 (same price as the first). The subject of this one is the flight of Apollo 17 - the last of the Apollo missions, I believe. The format is similar to the first - lots of still photos mixed with movie film. I've only watched the first side, but it looks to be as good as the shuttle disk was. Andy Sheppard Convex Computer Corporation ------------------------------ Date: 21 Apr 84 11:17:56-PST (Sat) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: decvax!mcnc!duke!ucf-cs!giles @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: Shuttle landings & Orlando International Talking of catastrophes, it could also land at McDill Air Force Base or Tampa International in the Tampa Bay area, or possibly Patrick Air Force Base just to the south of KSC. But the last I heard, NASA was not considering either Orlando or Tampa Internationals for their list of standard continengcy landing sites because they decided that if the shuttle could make it to Florida it could make it to KSC. Doesn't make sense to me either. ave discordia going bump in the night ... bruce giles decvax!ucf-cs!giles university of central florida giles.ucf-cs@Rand-Relay orlando, florida 32816 ------------------------------ Date: 21 Apr 84 11:36:27-PST (Sat) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: ihnp4!cbosgd!osu-dbs!julian @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: spinoffs > The obvious manufacturing-productivity things happened: by getting a > product to market, they subsequently improved the process yield, price, > and efficiency far beyond the American originator's abilities. There > are even rumors of photovoltaic roofing tile. A lot of things are obvious once someone else figures them out. ------------------------------ Date: 20 Apr 84 18:15:00-PST (Fri) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: harpo!seismo!ut-sally!ut-ngp!pyle @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Shuttle Propulsion Specs According to my references, here are the specs on the STS propulsion systems: Solid Rocket Booster (SRB, 2 per flight): Used from T+0:0:02.64 (i.e., 2.64 seconds after check of main engine status) until T+0:02:00, separate at T+0:02:07 Length: 149 feet, Diameter: 12 feet, Weight at launch: 1,300,000 pounds each, Thrust at launch: 2,650,000 pounds each Propellants: fuel - aluminum powder (16%), oxidizer - ammonium perchlorate (69.83%), catalyst - iron oxide powder (0.17%), binder and curing agents - (14%) SRB nozzles gimbal up to 6 degrees for steering under power of SRB Auxillary Power Unit (APU) Space Shuttle Main Engine (SSME, 3 per shuttle): Typically operate from T-0:0:03 until T+0:08:38 Rated thrust: 375,000 pounds, variable from 65 to 109% of rated value Designed to operate 7.5 hours between major overhauls, in reality this has not been met Propellants: hydrogen and oxygen with final burn ratio of 1:6 Orbital Maneuvering System (OMS, 2 engines per shuttle): Operates during orbital insertion, deorbit burn, and as needed for orbital changes Thrust: 6,000 pounds each Propellants: fuel - monomethyl hydrazine, oxidizer - nitrogen tetroxide Length: 77 inches, weight: 260 pounds, gimbaled in pitch and yaw Reaction Control System (RCS): Primary thrusters: 38 engines with 870 pound thrust Secondary thrusters: 6 engines with 25 pound thrust RCS thrusters are grouped in three modules: one in nose, and in each OMS pod Propellants: same as OMS engines Keith Pyle UUCP: . . .{ihnp4,seismo,ctvax,kpno,gatech}!ut-sally!ut-ngp!pyle ARPA: pyle@ut-ngp ------------------------------ Date: 22 Apr 84 23:48:42-PST (Sun) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: bart @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Airspace during landing. At Edwards AFB, the shuttle is in restricted airspace for the whole time below FL450. It flies through some combination of restricted areas R2524, R2502x, R2515. and R2505. The airspace around Edwards and the AFB itself is open until 30 minutes before landing time. The last half hour of open time (from 60 until 30 minutes before touchdown) is a real zoo. You have NASA stuff landing (everything from C135's to Falcon's), F4's and F16's are coming home, VIP's, and a collection of random others. Everyone wants to get home. If they don't, they get sent out to George AFB (about 45 miles SE) until it's all over. We were landing during this period, and we got instructions like "Centurion one golf foxtrot, follow that flight of 16's ahead in the one-eighty pattern. Keep your speed up on final, you're followed by a cargo heavy." --bart miller u.c. berkeley ------------------------------ Date: 26 Apr 1984 17:28:02-EST From: Dale.Amon at CMU-RI-FAS Subject: L5 Anyone interested in being included in a directory of L5 members on the network(s) please mail the following info to me: Name Chapter affiliation (if any) L5 office (chapter officer, national committee member, phone tree) L5 member or just interested Useful info: ie work for JSC, Pres. of USA, etc Site name City, state Various network mailing addresses (ARPA, CSNET, UUCP, etc) You will be added to a directory and also to a mailing list that is being kept up in San Diego. send mail to: amon@cmu-ri-fas.ARPA The SSME's are mounted on the shuttle because otherwise the very expensive engines would do just what the ET does: reenter and burn. Interestingly enough, this is exactly the way the Russky shuttle is built. Cost effectiveness is NOT their goal. It is thought that they intend to use the same booster for other purposes, so they included the engines as a throw away. And by the way, anybody out there who isn't already a member of L5 or L5 Spacepac should be embarrassed and hiding their head in shame. We're the front lines in the space shuttle battle, so get your flak jackets and helmets and send your palsley, insignificant sum of $25 to: L5 Society 1060 E. Elm Street Tucson, AZ 85719 And be sure to indicate that Pittsburgh L5 sent you!!! Ad Astra and into the trenches, Dale Amon ------------------------------ Date: 26 Apr 1984 20:17-EST From: Hank.Walker@CMU-CS-VLSI.ARPA Subject: Re: solar cells To: space@mit-mc Message-Id: <451876679/dmw@CMU-CS-VLSI> According to a March Spectrum article, RCA achieved 10.1% efficient amorphous cells in 1982. This technology was licensed to Solarex. Fuji, Sanyo, and Sharp have plants, the latter in a joint venture with Energy Conversion Devices of Troy, Michigan. Sharp is using it to build solar-powered calculators. The cost is about $7 per peak watt, about the same as solar modules (cells in assemblies) made with commercially-available single-crystal cells. Low price per peak watt for the cell isn't the goal, it's low price per kilowatt hour. This takes into account balance-of-plant costs such as power conditioners, and as an example, for a typical plant, 12.6% cells could cost $400M, 10% cells could cost $320M, and 5% cells would have to cost -30M for the same busbar power cost. So efficiency does matter for power plants. This example comes from Southern California Edison, the utility with more solar experience than anyone. So NASA's goals aren't all that different than those of the real world. ------------------------------ Date: 21 Apr 84 13:24:49-PST (Sat) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: decvax!ittvax!dcdwest!sdcsvax!akgua!clyde!watmath!utzoo!henry @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: Fuses and Reaction Wheels In-Reply-To: Article <12307@sri-arpa.UUCP> Sheldon Meth observes: I heard an (unconfirmed) story that Solar Max's fuses blew because the gas contained in them diffused into space resulting in a lower current rating than the (well behaved) circuit they were in. According to the chief scientist for Solar Max (a talk from him was part of the NSI launch tour I took for the 41C launch), nobody was quite sure what the problem with Solar Max's attitude-control system fuses was. There was a great deal of interest in examining the bad module to try to determine what caused the problem. He also said, incidentally, that the bring-it-back-to-Earth-if-we- can't-fix-it option was definitely a last resort, because there was no funding allocated for either repair or relaunch after return. "We are planning for a successful in-space repair." He must have been awfully happy when the last grabbing attempt succeeded. -- Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology {allegra,ihnp4,linus,decvax}!utzoo!henry ------------------------------ Date: 22 Apr 84 11:57:40-PST (Sun) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: ucbtopaz!unisoft!ed @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: spinoffs In-Reply-To: Article <3771@utzoo.UUCP> It may be true that Japan hasn't spent much until recently on basic R&D. I think it's still true that they aren't spending on research. A professor I know, who is involved in VLSI including chip-disign systems and methodologies, recently (about 2 years ago, actually) visited with some Japanese companies. One of the things he reported was a comment made by one of the Japanese folks. When asked how it was that the Japanese seemed to have the best design and design-rule checking software aroune, the Japanese replied that it wasn't anything new or original. They'd just implemented some of the published US research! What I think this really means is that the US companies are suffering from a bad case of Not Invented Here. -- Ed Gould ucbvax!mtxinu!ed ------------------------------ Date: 23 Apr 84 1:20:48-PST (Mon) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: hplabs!hao!kpno!astrovax!ks @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: Wernher von Braun and shuttle A couple of weeks back one of you folks on the net asserted that Wernher von Braun was not a shuttle supporter. Our system has long ago purged the article, but I recall that my request for specific references on this surprising assertion went unsatisfied. In the course of some research work I am doing I have come across the following citation which (as I expected) shows Dr. von Braun's *support* of the program. [From Hearings before a subcommittee of the Senate appropriations committee, 92nd Congress, first session, June 29 1971, p.682] : "The shuttle program proposed by NASA is the top priority space program of the 1970's. It is the keystone of our long range plan for both manned and unmanned programs." At the time of this testimony NASA was still considering the two-stage, fully-reusable, manned flyback booster shuttle concept. However, it's hard to understand von Braun changing his mind just because of the design change. I now really need some new information to indicate if and how his mind was changed on this. ------------------------------ Date: 23 Apr 84 13:36:06-PST (Mon) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: hplabs!oliveb!jerry @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: Shuttle Main Engine stats request In-Reply-To: Article <11700005@acf4.UUCP> <3764@utzoo.UUCP> I don't have the article in front of me but I remember on reading the thrust vs. weight figures that the shuttle engines can lift the shuttle and its payload into orbit. The solid fuel boosters lift themselves and the strap on fuel tank. Jerry Aguirre {hplabs|fortune|ios|tolerant|allegra|tymix}!oliveb!jerry ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 01-May-84 0304 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #181 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 181 Today's Topics: LEM specs. Correction Space archive laser disks Re: Why are SSMEs on SS? Re: Shuttle landings & Orlando International Re: Getting it back to the Cape Margin of Error 4 Landings Emergency landings and OMS Re: Getting back to the cape von Braun & Shuttle Re: Re: big bangs - (nf) Re: EAFB May Be Used Throughout 1984 Why 104%? NASA ( ** FLAME ** ) ICs are NASA spinoffs? Re: Shuttle landings & Orlando International "WHADDYA MEAN WE CAN'T CIRCLE FOR A LANDING???!!" Space station?? How about other things too/first? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 27 Apr 84 11:56:11 PST (Friday) From: Jef Poskanzer Subject: LEM specs. To: SPACE@MIT-MC.ARPA Can someone tell me some of the specs on the Apollo lunar module? Such as dry mass, fueled mass, max and min thrust, max and min fuel consumption, etc.? Can someone tell me a good reference in which to look up this kind of thing for myself? --- Jef ------------------------------ Date: 27 Apr 1984 15:24:51-EST From: Dale.Amon at CMU-RI-FAS Subject: Correction Read 'Space station' instead of 'Space shuttle' on my previous post. It'll make more sense!! ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 27 Apr 84 16:15:24 pst From: Ross Finlayson Subject: Space archive laser disks To: space@mit-mc From the description, these seem wonderful. Unfortunately, I don't have a laser disk player. Does anyone know whether this company also sells videocassettes? Could someone also post (or repost) their mailing address? Ross. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 27 Apr 84 17:22 MST From: Charlie Spitzer Subject: Re: Why are SSMEs on SS? To: MHARRIS@BBNF.ARPA cc: Space@MIT-MC.ARPA Message-ID: <840428002218.879875@HIS-PHOENIX-MULTICS.ARPA> Because the ET drops off and burns up. The engines are reusable, and they wouldn't be in very good shape after dropping out of near-LEO. Charlie Spitzer (Spitzer%pco@CISL) ------------------------------ Date: 23 Apr 84 10:00:48-PST (Mon) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: ihnp4!ihuxw!thor @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: Shuttle landings & Orlando International Maybe we could even land it on that strip in Grenada. Mark Kohls ihuxw!thor ------------------------------ Date: 24 Apr 84 21:15:35-PST (Tue) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: decvax!cca!ima!inmet!jmd @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: Getting it back to the Cape The shuttle has just enough aerodynamic characteristics to get it back down to the ground in a reasonable plummet. It has the glide characteristics of a large rock. That is, if you had the shuttle and a 747 at 30,000 feet with a forward velocity of 200 miles per hour, with no further engine power - the shuttle would fall to the ground much quicker than the 747. Next time, watch the shuttle drop from an altitude of several thousand feet (at about 200 mph) and compare that to a commercial liner. You'll be amazed how much faster the shuttle drops! This is what happens after you live with an aero major!!! Jeff Diewald ...harpo!inmet!jmd ------------------------------ Date: 24 Apr 84 9:53:14-PST (Tue) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: hplabs!sdcrdcf!trwrb!trwspp!brahms @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Margin of Error 4 Landings Since the topic of shuttle landings have come up, I have a question: What is the margin of error for the shuttle when making a deorbit burn? e.g. If the deorbit burn is done 10 miles to late/early (I would think there is a larger margin of error than this) than it should be, would it still be able to land at its target? Conversely, when a shuttle does come out of orbit, how big of an area (on the ground) can the target be in? -- Brad Brahms usenet: {decvax,ucbvax}!trwrb!trwspp!brahms arpa: Brahms@USC-ECLC ------------------------------ Date: 25 Apr 84 8:41:20-PST (Wed) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: hplabs!sdcrdcf!lwall @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Emergency landings and OMS If I were a Shuttle pilot, and decided that I was going to come up short (or would that be "come down short"?) of the runway, I would be tempted to fire up the OMS engines to stretch out my glide path a little. Could someone in the know say to what extent this is practical, and whether NASA has considered this in its contingency plans? And where can the Shuttle land (besides Easter Island, thank you Mr. Stine/Correy) if it poops out partway up to a polar or sun-synch orbit? If the Shuttle floats like it flies, I wouldn't want to try to ditch it, though I s'pose if the tiles stayed on they might actually serve as floatation for a short while. I wouldn't put any money on the tiles staying on, though, or even on the whole bird staying in one piece. What say? Larry Wall {allegra,burdvax,cbosgd,hplabs,ihnp4,sdcsvax}!sdcrdcf!lwall ------------------------------ Date: 24 Apr 84 17:29:55-PST (Tue) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: hplabs!hao!seismo!brl-tgr!brl-vgr!ron @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: Getting back to the cape Last summer when they were flying the shuttle back to the cape they did loops around the Baltimore and Washington beltways. They were at some lower altitude so people could see them easily from the ground. (Actually...I am refering to circuits around the circular highway here, they didn't actually do loops). =Ron ------------------------------ Date: 25 Apr 84 7:06:07-PST (Wed) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: ihnp4!drutx!houxe!hogpc!houti!ariel!vax135!floyd!cmcl2!lanl-a!ths @ Ucb-Vax Subject: von Braun & Shuttle Recent comments regarding von Braun and the space shuttle took me back into his biography (by Erik Bergaust). I could find no disparaging remarks. It should be noted that von Braun was instrumental in the re-design of the shuttle from its form as a totally reusable vehicle to its current configuation employing a "throw-away" fuel tank. It is alledged that this redesign cut the cost of the shuttle development in half. THe shuttle is not as cost effective as it was advertised to be, nor is it as efficient in lifting to LEO as the Saturn V. But then few of us are the same as our resumes represent us to be. There was, and still is a lot of "salesmanship" in the shuttle program.... but it ain't a bad flying machine. I'm looking forward to Shuttle II. ------------------------------ Date: 24 Apr 84 21:06:09-PST (Tue) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: decvax!cca!ima!ism780!darryl @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: Re: big bangs - (nf) For several different possibilities on the beginning of (our) universe, see this month's (May) Scientific American, "The Inflationary Universe". Darryl Richman ...!ima!ism780!darryl ------------------------------ Date: 25 Apr 84 5:21:59-PST (Wed) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: harpo!ulysses!gamma!pyuxww!pyuxa!wetcw @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: EAFB May Be Used Throughout 1984 The reason announced last night on ABC was that the weather at the Cape is just too lousy during the next 4 months to be predictable. They decided to shift all operations back to EAFB to avoid the constant changes in weather at the cape. ------------------------------ Date: Mon 30 Apr 84 08:46:12-EDT From: Anthony J. Courtemanche Subject: Why 104%? To: space-enthusiasts@MIT-MC Could someone please explain what 104% thrust is? To the uninformed (like me), that term sounds pretty silly. AC@MIT-OZ ------------------------------ Date: 25 Apr 84 9:26:30-PST (Wed) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: hplabs!tektronix!uw-beaver!ssc-vax!marla @ Ucb-Vax Subject: NASA ( ** FLAME ** ) In his article in net.space, Martin Minow (decvax!minow) says: > NASA is a good idea, but there are mundane needs that it cannot solve. So what? NASA has caused the production of many things that HAVE solved many mundane needs! What about computers?, remote monitoring? Just because everything they do doesn't have IMMEDIATE "mundane" applications, doesn't mean that they are not a valuable research organization. Sometimes, they have to inspire research that advances their own aims. NASA has done more to promote pure research than almost any other government group I can think of. (Except perhaps the NSA) ****************** FLAME ON ******************************** I really hate these "If they're not perfect, they're not worth having" attitudes. Unfortunately, there are a lot of people around that think that because NASA hasn't solved their "favorite" problem, it should be gotten rid of! BULL SH*T!!!!!! NASA hasn't solved the problem of world peace, hunger, cancer, or many other major problems facing the world today. But that doesn't mean that their contribution isn't useful! In fact, in some ways, they have made contributions in many of these areas: Internation cooperation, tracking weather problems to help farmers, new pharmicuticals, etc! ************************ FLAME OFF ************************* (Whew! That feels better!) Marla S. Baer ssc-vax!marla ------------------------------ Date: 25 Apr 84 10:04:50-PST (Wed) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: hplabs!tektronix!tekchips!vice!keithl @ Ucb-Vax Subject: ICs are NASA spinoffs? There they go again... NASA may have indeed spun off most of the things on the posted "spinoff" list (I don't know one way or the other), but not the microcircuit or the microprocessor. The first integrated circuits were intended for weapon fuses, the first TTL circuits were supplied to the Minuteman program, the first MOS circuits were developed for encryption systems, and the first MOS microprocessor was intended for a terminal. In electronics, NASA is small potatoes compared to most commercial markets, and the original research they do is pretty meager compared to many major universities or companies. Missing from the list, of course, are the technological means (rockets, guidance systems, improved re-entry methods, etc.) for thermonuclear devastation, although we should probably give most of the credit for this, as well as many other "space spinoffs", to the vastly better funded D.O.D. And don't forget Pillsbury Space Food Sticks! :-) An IC designer and private space researcher, in the heart of the Silicon Forest: -- Keith Lofstrom uucp: {ucbvax,decvax,chico,pur-ee,cbosg,ihnss}!tektronix!vice!keithl CSnet: keithl@tek ARPAnet:keithl.tek@rand-relay ------------------------------ Date: 25 Apr 84 13:55:09-PST (Wed) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: hplabs!tektronix!uw-beaver!ssc-vax!eder @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: Shuttle landings & Orlando International 25 April 1984 I'm looking at a copy of the approach and landing charts the astronauts use during Shuttle returns. It identifies all the possible landing sites for the Orbiter. In addition to KSC runway 33, which is the normal landing site, the following are identified in the vicinity of KSC: A 10000 foot skid strip at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station (adjacent to the Kennedy Space Center) Orlando International MacDill Air Force Base near St. Petersburg, Fl Cecil Field Naval Air Station, near Jacksonville, FL Tyndall Air Force Base, Panama City Fl Elgin Air Force Base, Pensacola, Fl The last two mentioned are about 300 nautical miles from KSC, the rest are within about 120 nautical miles. Dani Eder Boeing Aerospace Comapny ssc-vax!eder ------------------------------ Date: 25 Apr 84 13:10:40-PST (Wed) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: decvax!mcnc!akgua!sb1!sb6!diy @ Ucb-Vax Subject: "WHADDYA MEAN WE CAN'T CIRCLE FOR A LANDING???!!" This is a question I haven't been able to find an answer to, so maybe the net can help. I would think that NASA would have taken into consideration, when they designed the shuttle, the possibilities of problems of SOME type popping up during landing. And since they're gliding in, and have no power, it's "land the damn thing anyway". That's the overiding reason (and a good one,I think) why I wouldn't be a shuttle passenger. Does anyone know what happens say if the shuttle is up in space the maximum number of days, HAS to land, and there's bad weather at both the Cape and Edwards? Other military airports? What about problems during landing...any options? I'm sure there might be others with these same questions, so please post to net if you got the answer. I'd LOVE to orbit the earth, but I'd feel a lot safer if my pilot had a second chance!!! dennis ------------------------------ Date: 1 May 1984 05:33-EDT From: Robert Elton Maas Subject: Space station?? How about other things too/first? To: Dale.Amon @ CMU-RI-FAS cc: SPACE @ MIT-MC I favor an unmanned space platform asap. It would provide: (1) A physical place to mount various instrument (experiment) packages so they wouldn't get lost in space; (2) Three-axis stabilization and real-time data-feed telling the location and attitude in case experiments (such as telescopes) may need to pivot to aim in some particular direction or at least know what direction they are randomly aimed at if fixed-mounted; (3) Electrical power, provided by a centralized power source (nuclear) or convertor (solar), so each instrument doesn't need its own solar collector; (4) Communications, including both incoming control from Earth and outgoing telemetry/data from the experiment. STS crew would test new experiment packages in the cargo bay to make sure they still function after launch, then unplug them from the STS and plug them into the unmanned space platform. Experiments needing periodic resupply of fuels could be resupplied by STS. Experiments needing return to Earth, or jettison, could be retrieved by STS crew. Experiments requiring more than a week duration in space (one STS flight time) could be flown, without needing to build a special satellite for it. Thus many more random experiments could be flown from time to time than with traditional methods. (Note the long-duration explosure facility has two major limitations: no power, only passive exposure; and everything must be put up and retrieved at the same time. My proposed space platform would be much better and more flexible.) [In addition to this new item, I continue to desire: lunar polar orbiter to search for water-ice, ion-rocket or solar-sail deep-space propulsion system, docking&analysis of asteroids for possible mining use, permanently-manned space station, ... eventually lunar&asteroid mining facilities, large space manufacturing and large space habitat, ...] ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 02-May-84 0304 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #182 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 182 Today's Topics: SPACE Digest V4 #181 Re: Space station?? How about other things too/first? Re: Margin of Error 4 Landings Re: When is the next launch? Re: "WHADDYA MEAN WE CAN'T CIRCLE FOR A LANDING???!!" Re: EAFB May Be Used Throughout 1984 When is the next launch? Shuttle Tiles Question Re: Shuttle Tiles Question Re: Shuttle Tiles Question ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 1 May 1984 15:54 EDT Message-ID: From: MINSKY%MIT-OZ@MIT-MC.ARPA to: SPACE@MIT-MC, minsky%MIT-OZ@MIT-MC.ARPA Subject: SPACE Digest V4 #181 In-reply-to: Msg of 1 May 1984 06:04-EDT from Ted Anderson At some meeting around 1974 or so, I discussed colonization with von Braun. At that time, anyway, he regard the shuttle as a good thing. ------------------------------ Date: 1 May 1984 1433 PDT From: Doug Freyburger Subject: Re: Space station?? How about other things too/first? To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC Cc: rem@mit-mc,Dale.Amon@cmu-ri-fas Reply-To: DOUG@JPL-VLSI.ARPA (1) A physical place to mount various instrument (experiment)... (2) Three-axis stabilization and real-time data-feed telling the... (3) Electrical power, provided by a centralized power source... (4) Communications, including both incoming control from Earth and... A manned station would supply all of this and more, like on-line repairs, experiment redirection, etc. The station need not even be permanently manned, just frequently to usually. There are even economic reasons for wanting people up there. People are so much more flexible than machines. There is some sort of equation of productivity that goes like this: 2 humans + 10 robots = 4 humans + 0 robots = 0 humans + near-infinite robots The tradeoffs in payload mass win big with a robot-heavy population with spatterings of humans. When we get really good AI programs that can handle goal-oriented action as well as humans, we will only be a small portion of the way there. We also need robots that know how to repair other machines (and each other) which is no trivial image processing and knowledge-based AI task. Plus we need that creativity that lets a human deflect hisher path in the middle of a project because s/he noticed something very important on the side. The only part-for-part replacement for a man is still a wo-man. And they both seem to fit neatly into the definition for "hu-man". Chuckle. (-)NX, Doug ------ ------------------------------ Date: 26 Apr 84 16:16:16-PST (Thu) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: hplabs!hao!kpno!astrovax!ks @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: Margin of Error 4 Landings In-Reply-To: Article <401@trwspp.UUCP> I can't answer your questions directly, but I think the fact that the shuttle possesses the capability to fly 1100 miles of cross range (distance between orbit ground track and landing site) makes up for any small error on the de-orbit burn. ------------------------------ Date: 26 Apr 84 16:14:04-PST (Thu) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: hplabs!hao!kpno!astrovax!ks @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: When is the next launch? In-Reply-To: Article <614@ariel.UUCP> According to the most recent issue of Aviation Week & Space Technology (available at many libraries), June 20 is the planned launch date for STS-41D (the twelfth shuttle mission). It is planned to be a seven day mission with a six person crew. ------------------------------ Date: 26 Apr 84 15:19:21-PST (Thu) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: ihnp4!mit-eddie!barmar @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: "WHADDYA MEAN WE CAN'T CIRCLE FOR A LANDING???!!" In-Reply-To: Article <160@sb6.UUCP> -------------------- Does anyone know what happens say if the shuttle is up in space the maximum number of days, HAS to land, and there's bad weather at both the Cape and Edwards? Other military airports? -------------------- I think this is a very unlikely situation. First of all, the mission schedules probably leave lots of leeway between the planned landing and the "HAS to land" time, so it is unlikely that the weather would be bad at both EAFB (in a desert) and KSC. Also, the shuttle CAN land in imperfect weather; NASA has just chosen so far to play it extremely safe, since we are still new at this game. Finally, in an extreme emergency, I have heard a rumor that it is possible to land the shuttle on some ordinary runways (like Kennedy Int'l in NYC, although they would probably choose a military airport); one problem with this would be that they would have to erect a crane there in order to mount the shuttle on the 747 to bring it back to the Cape. -- Barry Margolin ARPA: barmar@MIT-Multics UUCP: ..!genrad!mit-eddie!barmar ------------------------------ Date: 26 Apr 84 13:49:39-PST (Thu) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: decvax!mcnc!duke!ucf-cs!giles @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: EAFB May Be Used Throughout 1984 In-Reply-To: Article <711@pyuxa.UUCP> >> The reason announced last night on ABC was that the weather at the Cape >> is just too lousy during the next 4 months to be predictable. They >> decided to shift all operations back to EAFB to avoid the constant >> changes in weather at the cape. The weather in Central Florida is not too lousy to be predictable, it is too lousy. Period. In fact, I was surprised they ever expect the Cape to be contiuously usable for landings. I don't have official Weather Bureau statistics in front of me, but as a life-long resident I know that during the summer months in Florida, expect a heavy thunderstorm between 3:30 and 5:30 pm. Every day. You can also include about a half-dozen hailstorms and minor tornadoes during the summer months also. And, if a hurricane passes within 400 kilometers, the blue skies visible before and after the aforementioned storms will disappear for 4-5 days straight. Florida the "Sunshine State". Humphf. Ask anyone who moved to Orlando around April or May, expecting to see sunny skies constantly. Everyone I know who did went into a severe shock: It was either near 100 degrees Fahrenheit with 85-95 percent humidity, or raining at 3-4 inches/hour. (That is -- If you are on the road, you generally must pull over because your wipers on `high' are not powerful enought to clear your windshield). ave discordia going bump in the night ... bruce giles decvax!ucf-cs!giles university of central florida giles.ucf-cs@Rand-Relay orlando, florida 32816 ------------------------------ Date: 26 Apr 84 12:17:41-PST (Thu) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: ihnp4!drutx!houxe!hogpc!houti!ariel!wrp @ Ucb-Vax Subject: When is the next launch? Will the next launch be on June 4? I ask this because I am interested in taking the trip to KSC to see it happen. I am also interested in any info on where to stay; how early to get there; what the closest (best) possible viewing area is for us non-V.I.P. types. Also, is the film "Hail Columbia" being shown in the vicinity of the KSC. Thank you for any information. Bill Pennock AT&T Information Systems Laboratories Holmdel, NJ ... houxg!ariel!wrp ------------------------------ Date: 27 Apr 84 5:58:13-PST (Fri) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: harpo!ulysses!gamma!pyuxww!pyuxa!wetcw @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Shuttle Tiles Question In the vein of 'spinoffs', I have a question concerning the heat tiles used on the shuttles. From what I understood and read (from the media, so I don't trust the reports 100%), the tiles are designed to absorb heat on reentry and dissipate the heat over a longer period of time. I seem to recall a news report that featured a guy heating a tile with a torch for about a minute, then picking up the tile with his bare hands and not being burned. Now, my question is, if the tiles do indeed have this property, would it be possible to line a gas or oil=fired furnace with these tiles, apply heat for a short period, then turn off the heat and allow the stored heat to slowly dissipate, thus providing a heat source over a long period of time and saving fuel? Could this be a possible use in the area of conservation? If engineered correctly, could a whole new generation of devices be developed to take advantage of the heat retention properties of the tiles? T. C. Wheeler ------------------------------ Date: 27 Apr 84 12:41:51-PST (Fri) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: hplabs!hao!seismo!ut-sally!ut-ngp!cmaz504 @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: Shuttle Tiles Question In-Reply-To: Article <721@pyuxa.UUCP> That's funny I thought it was just the opposite:the tiles are suppose to dissipate heat very quickly. One story I heard said that during one of the demonstartions after he had heated the thing up to >1000 degrees the engineer grabbed hold and nearly burned his fingerprints off. Apparnetly the tile only cools quickly on the edge and he grabbed it in the middle (could be the other way around). ------------------------------ Date: 27 Apr 84 10:07:13-PST (Fri) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: ihnp4!houxm!ho95b!jam @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: Shuttle Tiles Question In-Reply-To: Article <721@pyuxa.UUCP>, <440@ihlts.UUCP> I also saw something on television once about the shuttle tiles - After showing how they were made and how and why each one is individually shaped, they had a graphic demo of their insulating properties. They took a red-hot tile out of a furnace, and then came back a while later when the core of the tile was still glowing cherry red (you could see it through the sides of the tile). A man simply picked it up, handled it thoroughly, and passed it to a reporter. The outside was obviously cool enough to handle while the inside was still red-hot! They went on to explain some of the history behind the long effort to develop the material that could perform so well, but I forget the details. ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 03-May-84 0303 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #183 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 183 Today's Topics: Re: Emergency landings and OMS Re: Emergency Landings Re: SPACE Digest V4 #182 Re: SPACE Digest V4 #182 Space station Re: Space station?? How about other things too/first? orbital mechanics ? Space Station Tally ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 27 Apr 84 11:53:48-PST (Fri) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: ihnp4!ihlts!rjnoe @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: Emergency landings and OMS > If I were a Shuttle pilot, and decided that I was going to come up > short of the runway, I would be tempted to fire up the OMS engines > to stretch out my glide path a little. > Larry Wall Nice trick, since all remaining reactants are purged from the OMS/RCS tanks long before touchdown. I do not know if the He tanks are left pressurized until landing or not. In any event, the OMS engines would have a small effect (thrust) at sea level--probably negligible compared to the kinetic energy of the "dry" orbiter. Only the SSMEs (Space Shuttle Main Engines) and, of course, the SRBs (Solid Rocket Boosters) were ever intended to be used anywhere outside the vacuum of space. Roger Noe ihnp4!ihlts!rjnoe ------------------------------ Date: 27 Apr 84 11:36:49-PST (Fri) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: ihnp4!ihopa!jao @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: Emergency Landings Thanks to all for the information about alternative landing site possibilities. How's this for some historical perspective: Once upon a time, when I was looking around in a research library, I found some *very* old copies of "Aviation Week." These were *long* before it became "Aviation Week and Space Technology." There was an article by one of the Wright brothers on his view of the future of aviation. He envisioned a future in which it would be possible to fly safely across America. The technology would become so sophisticated, he felt, that planes would be capable of *gliding* safely for several miles after (inevitable) engine failure. So runways would be constructed every 10 miles all across the country to provide for safe emergency landings. -- Julia O'Keefe ..!ihnp4!ihopa!jao AT&T Bell Labs, Naperville, Il. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 2 May 84 11:44:45 CDT From: Carl Rosene Subject: Re: SPACE Digest V4 #182 To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC.ARPA Message-Id: <8.animal.Dione@Rice> The important fact about the tiles is not that the temperature goes down so quickly or so slowly, but rather that the tile material does not easily transfer the heat. Although the temperature of the tile may be hundreds or even thousands of degrees Farenheit, it can still be safe to pick up because it won't easily transfer that heat to the fingers. Likewise, these same tiles will not transfer that heat to the shuttle during landing. If you consider the material that makes up most of the volume of the tile(air) I think you will also realize that it must have a very low heat capacity as well. I think that makes it unsuitable for that furnace application suggested. ------------------------------ Date: Wed 2 May 84 13:21:55-EDT From: Gern Subject: Re: SPACE Digest V4 #182 To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC.ARPA In-Reply-To: Message from "Ted Anderson " of Wed 2 May 84 03:04:00-EDT In the unlikely event that the shuttle has to make an emergency landing and both Edwards and KSC and every place other is not usable (highly unlikely), Griffiss Air Force Base (where I am) in central New York State has been specified as a landing site. Our 3 mile long runway and NORAD communications/radar facility and standard SAC Base facilities would be a lot of help in the event. Cheers, Gern ------- ------------------------------ Date: 2 May 1984 18:34:51-EDT From: Dale.Amon at CMU-RI-FAS Subject: Space station A national group is being formed to lay to rest the supposition that 'scientists don't want a manned space station'. This reached a peak on Monday when Congressman Green held a press conference in Washington DC to state that as a fact. The name of the new organization has not been formalized but will probably be 'Scientists for a Manned Space Station'. Membership requirements are: a) You work in science (not necessarily a Phd) b) You agree that a manned space station is a good idea Dr. Jastrow and Dr. Sheffield will be spokespersons at a press conference to be held in DC next week. Many others have already joined us; Dr. James Fletcher (Former NASA director), Dr. Noel Jarret (tech. dir. at Alcoa), Gordon Woodcock, Peter Vijk, Marvin Minsky, John McCarthy, and many. many others. To lend your support, mail me the following information: Name: Dr. Public Title: Professor of Foobaz Affiliation: Foobaz Dept, Farkle University Mail: Phone: Get people in other departments if you can. Get info to me as soon as possible. We want to have as large a support base as possible by the time of the press conference. But even if it's late, it's welcome. amon@cmu-ri-fas.ARPA AD ASTRA!!!! Onwards through the fog... ------------------------------ Date: 2 May 1984 21:43-EDT From: Robert Elton Maas Subject: Re: Space station?? How about other things too/first? To: DOUG @ JPL-VLSI cc: SPACE @ MIT-MC Date: 1 May 1984 1433 PDT From: Doug Freyburger (1) A physical place to mount various instrument (experiment)... (2) Three-axis stabilization and real-time data-feed telling the... (3) Electrical power, provided by a centralized power source... (4) Communications, including both incoming control from Earth and... A manned station would supply all of this and more, Unfortunately the manned statin won't be around for about ten years according to R.Reagan's proposal. In the meantime I'd like to see SOMETHING up there to mount long-term experiments, something that will cost only one shuttle launch instead of twenty and cost some infinitesimal fraction of the cost of a manned station, thus might get up there in a couple years from now. ------------------------------ Date: 26 Apr 84 11:22:00-PST (Thu) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: pur-ee!uiucdcs!uiuccsb!emrath @ Ucb-Vax Subject: orbital mechanics ? I don't remember enough mechanics from high school or college. I read in Aviation Week & ST that the deorbit burn on the last shuttle mission resulted in a retrograde delta-v of about 460 feet per second. This is consistent with the figures of 6000 lbs thrust per OMS engine, a mass of 75-100 tons, and burn time of 8 min. However, I figure the shuttle's velocity must be close to 25k fps at an orbit of 250 nmiles. I'm suprised that less than a 2% change brings it down rather than just bringing it to an elliptical orbit. Is the de-orbit burn done at an orbit just above the atmosphere so that the new low point is within, thus allowing friction to take over? Perry Emrath, UofIL ...{decvax|inuxc}!pur-ee!uiucdcs!emrath ------------------------------ Date: 26 Apr 84 19:00:12-PST (Thu) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: ihnp4!houxm!mhuxl!ulysses!allegra!alice!rabbit!rbc @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Space Station Tally It has been a week now and the votes for/against a space station have come in. Unfortunately the sides were a little unbalanced. Two people expressed dissatisfaction with the space station, claiming the money could be used elsewhere, and the possibility of the station becoming a center for defense systems. The countless others who mailed in were all for the space station. Some proposing elaborate and debatable ideas, while others just simply said YES. The view this newsgroup as a whole seems to be overwhelmingly for the space station. However, this cannot be viewed as the opinion of the majority of the citizens of the U.S.. It is only the tally of the active members of this newsgroup. The final tally: ~73 to 2 ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 04-May-84 0303 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #184 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 184 Today's Topics: Re: "WHADDYA MEAN WE CAN'T CIRCLE FOR A LANDING???!!" Re: Emergency landings and OMS Re: "WHADDYA MEAN WE CAN'T CIRCLE FOR A LANDING???!!" There's a Gator on the Strip - Fire Up the OMS! Re: "WHADDYA MEAN WE CAN'T CIRCLE FOR A LANDING???!!" Re: EAFB May Be Used Throughout 1984 Re: Space station?? How about other things too/first? Re: Space station?? How about other things too/first? Orbital mechanics ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 27 Apr 84 11:18:18-PST (Fri) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: ihnp4!drutx!houxe!hogpc!houti!ariel!vax135!floyd!cmcl2!lanl-a!unm-cvax!nmtvax!levaseur @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: "WHADDYA MEAN WE CAN'T CIRCLE FOR A LANDING???!!" Don't forget, there is Northrup Strip at White Sands Missile Range here in New Mexico.... we don't get much weather here, or so it seems for many days (weeks) at a time. When they landed there in the spring of 82, they had to put togeather a makeshift rig of cranes to lift it up and get the 747 carrier under it; it was a challange, but they were able to do it. roger ------------------------------ Date: 27 Apr 84 13:22:43-PST (Fri) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: harpo!ulysses!burl!clyde!watmath!utzoo!henry @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: Emergency landings and OMS Larry Wall asks, in part: And where can the Shuttle land (besides Easter Island, thank you Mr. Stine/Correy) if it poops out partway up to a polar or sun-synch orbit? The basic answer is: "in the ocean, far from help". The eastern Pacific is very, very wet. Easter Island sits in the middle of many millions of square kilometers of empty ocean. -- Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology {allegra,ihnp4,linus,decvax}!utzoo!henry ------------------------------ Date: 27 Apr 84 13:18:55-PST (Fri) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: harpo!ulysses!burl!clyde!watmath!utzoo!henry @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: "WHADDYA MEAN WE CAN'T CIRCLE FOR A LANDING???!!" Barry Margolin comments: .......................................... Finally, in an extreme emergency, I have heard a rumor that it is possible to land the shuttle on some ordinary runways (like Kennedy Int'l in NYC, although they would probably choose a military airport); one problem with this would be that they would have to erect a crane there in order to mount the shuttle on the 747 to bring it back to the Cape. It's not that bad. The Shuttle is capable of landing on any decent runway, although it helps if the right navigational aids are available. Just about any 747-capable airport would suffice, and lesser ones would probably be OK in a pinch. You actually need two cranes to hoist the shuttle onto a 747. One is a standard commercial heavy crane; the other is a special beastie that NASA keeps on hand just in case. (It was originally used for hoisting what is now Challenger for static tests at Marshall, and was deliberately kept around in case of a shuttle recovery at an unplanned site.) You need two cranes, not because of the mass, but because both the shuttle and the 747 have wings which get in the way. -- Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology {allegra,ihnp4,linus,decvax}!utzoo!henry ------------------------------ Date: 28 Apr 84 14:47:03-PST (Sat) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: hplabs!hao!seismo!ut-sally!ut-ngp!pyle @ Ucb-Vax Subject: There's a Gator on the Strip - Fire Up the OMS! Regarding the use of the OMS engines in the event of an emergency during landing, it would be probably not be too helpful. The 12,000 pounds of thrust they provide (6,000 each) and the limited burn time is not going to change the energy of the 80+ ton orbiter greatly. Also, the flight plan info I have seen indicates that the forward RCS propellants are dumped just after the OMS deorbit burn to change the orbiter's center of gravity. There is no mention of dumping the OMS or aft RCS propellant. I seem to recall mention made after the first Columbia flight that John Young was rather proud of the amount of OMS propellant remaining - an indication of his and Crippen's abilities. Keith Pyle UUCP: . . .{ihnp4,seismo,ctvax,kpno,gatech}!ut-sally!ut-ngp!pyle ARPA: pyle@ut-ngp ------------------------------ Date: 28 Apr 84 16:51:11-PST (Sat) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: decvax!ittvax!dcdwest!mees @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: "WHADDYA MEAN WE CAN'T CIRCLE FOR A LANDING???!!" All this talk of landing at alternate sites (military or civilian) brings to mind the problem of purging the fuel immediately following shuttle touchdown. As I remember, at both Edwards and KSC there are a veritable plethora of strange and unique looking vehicles which flock about the shuttle The question thus remains, can it REALLY land at an alternate site, you know, one that isn't equipped to handle the shuttle's remaining corrosive propellants. jim ------------------------------ Date: 28 Apr 84 8:13:30-PST (Sat) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: ihnp4!drutx!houxe!hogpc!houti!ariel!jlw @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: EAFB May Be Used Throughout 1984 Politics, Politics, Politics. You may not know this, but there is a thing known as the National Range System. White Sands Missile Range is run by the Army, Edwards and Vandenberg are run by the Air Force, Point Mogu(sp) is run by the Navy, Kennedy is run by NASA. WSMR, where I was stationed for two years in the Army, is ideal for full shuttle operations. It wouldn't even need a new runway; the one at Holloman AFB was until recently the longest paved runway in the world. Joseph L. Wood, III AT&T Information Systems Laboratories, Holmdel (201) 834-3759 ariel!jlw ------------------------------ Date: 03 May 84 09:02:10 PDT (Thu) To: Robert Elton Maas cc: DOUG@Jpl-Vlsi, SPACE@Mit-Mc Subject: Re: Space station?? How about other things too/first? From: Martin D. Katz As I understand, at least one version of the plans for a manned station show the station as a manned pod surrounded by a string of unmanned platforms. I think what you are asking for is a prototype platform. Maybe a corporation can be convinced to buy an empty LEO module, fit some hinged struts on it and lease out space for instruments and experiments to be mounted by the shuttle crew? ------------------------------ Date: 03 May 84 09:23:27 PDT (Thu) To: Robert Elton Maas cc: DOUG@Jpl-Vlsi, SPACE@Mit-Mc Subject: Re: Space station?? How about other things too/first? From: "Tim Shimeall" Date: 2 May 1984 21:43-EDT From: Robert Elton Maas To: DOUG @ JPL-VLSI A manned station would supply all of this and more, Unfortunately the manned statin won't be around for about ten years according to R.Reagan's proposal. In the meantime I'd like to see SOMETHING up there to mount long-term experiments, something that will cost only one shuttle launch instead of twenty and cost some infinitesimal fraction of the cost of a manned station, thus might get up there in a couple years from now. Something like the space telescope? IRAS? Seriously: the manned space station program is planned to be an Apollo-type program, and as such, I'd expect it to include several unmanned platforms of increasing complexity, leading up to the manned station. I know that the talk I heard on the space station included 2 platforms, one in polar, one in 28.5-degree inclination orbit in the INITIAL space station plans. More platforms are intended to be added as the station develops. The only reason the platforms are lumped in with the station is that they share the same stablization and power technologies, and so the platforms may very well be used to test for the station. Tim ------------------------------ Date: 30 Apr 84 5:58:28-PDT (Mon) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: decvax!decwrl!rhea!dvinci!fisher @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Orbital mechanics > I'm surprised that a 2% change in velocity can bring them down... Yes...the small delta-v just lowers the altitude at the opposite side of the orbit from the burn so that it is in the atmosphere. Do a sanity check: Columbia is orbiting at (very) roughly 4000 miles from the center of the earth. A altitude change of 2% is about 80 miles. Most STS missions are orbiting at an altitude (from the surface) in the vicinity of 150 miles. Lowering part of the orbit by 80 miles brings it to 70 miles, well within the range of atmospheric friction. I make no representation that velocity change is linear with altitude (in fact I am sure it is not); this is just a quick very rough sanity check to help make my assertion plausible to unbelievers. Burns UUCP: ... {decvax|allegra|ucbvax}!decwrl!rhea!dvinci!fisher ARPA: decwrl!rhea!dvinci!fisher@{Berkeley | SU-Shasta} ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 05-May-84 0303 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #185 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 185 Today's Topics: a commercial unmanned space station Re: EAFB May Be Used Throughout 1984 Satellite booster problems solved Re: "WHADDYA MEAN ... Dont you know?" ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 4 May 1984 09:42:35-EDT From: Hank.Walker at CMU-CS-VLSI Subject: a commercial unmanned space station Lockheed's planned Leasesat (or maybe it was Leasecraft) satisfies most or all of the requirements listed by some people on this digest for an unmanned space station. The craft is permanently deployed in space, and provides utilities such as power to experiment modules plugged into it. These modules are serviced and transported by the shuttle. Obviously NASA shouldn't be duplicating the work of commercial ventures. ------------------------------ Date: 30 Apr 84 8:00:25-PDT (Mon) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: ihnp4!houxm!hogpc!houti!ariel!hou5f!hou5e!tgg @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: EAFB May Be Used Throughout 1984 >WSMR, where I was >stationed for two years in the Army, is ideal for full shuttle >operations. It wouldn't even need a new runway; the one at >Holloman AFB was until recently the longest paved runway in the world. What is now the longest? KSC landing? Saudi Arabia? Interstate 80? Tom Gulvin - AT&T IS - Holmdel ------------------------------ Date: 04 May 84 1716 PDT From: Ross Finlayson Subject: Satellite booster problems solved To: space@MIT-MC.ARPA a228 1414 03 May 84 AM-Rocket Fixes, Bjt,750 Solve Rocket Problems on Lost Satellites By HARRY F. ROSENTHAL Associated Press Writer WASHINGTON (AP) - The head of the space agency said Thursday engineers have overcome problems with two types of rocket motors that caused the loss of two $75 million satellites, the near-loss of a third, and postponed two space shuttle flights. NASA administrator James M. Beggs received a report that a McDonnell-Douglas team has found a way to determine which rocket nozzle will fail in space and which will work. Such a procedure might have saved two communications satellites that went into useless orbits after being ejected from the shuttle last February. A spokesman for the firm said Beggs was told that McDonnell Douglas is optimistic that launches using the rocket can proceed on schedule. Beggs told wire service reporters in an interview that the solution comes too late to put a Canadian communications satellite on the next shuttle, scheduled for June 19, but in time for the launch of two satellites in August. Canadian authorities postponed the launch of an Anik satellite until next year because of the failures of the PAM rockets. Beggs had good news, too, about a much larger satellite rocket carrier called IUS. The biggest, most complex communications satellite ever launched was almost lost last year because of an IUS failure; it was saved through use of onboard fuel intended only for small positioning maneuvers. The IUS will have one more firing test this month, Beggs said, and if that goes well ''we will feel confident enough to fly the IUS again just as soon as we can get ready.'' The first use would be on a twice-postponed secret military flight in November. The Pentagon rescheduled one of its flights from last year to next July because of the IUS failure and then postponed it again. NASA, too, had to postpone the launch of a second Tracking and Data Relay Satellite - a vital piece of equipment for a number of space operations - because it did not trust the IUS. The successive PAM failures in February, after 18 successful launches, apparently were caused by a bad batch of material. ''We have been running some medical type of CAT-scan tests on nozzles,'' said Jeff Fister of McDonnell Douglas, the manufacturer. ''We have been getting good data from those tests. These tests will be able to show us which nozzles are good and which are bad.'' McDonnell-Douglas charges $4 million to $5 million for each PAM rocket. ''The problem with this ... material is that it varies from lot to lot and literally, nozzle to nozzle,'' Beggs said. ''A good question is why didn't we do this (testing) before'' he added. ''We got a little overconfident because we had 23 successful firings in a row (including test firings) and everybody kind of breathed a sigh of relief and said the infant mortality problem is over.'' Then, NASA ran into three successive problems with nozzles. One affected the big rocket boosters that help lift the shuttle to orbit. To their dismay, engineers found one set of nozzles nearly completely burned through by the end of its flight. Had it happened earlier, the burn-through might have caused the shuttle to cartwheel. The second problem was with the IUS, which is used to lift very heavy satellites. A seal, not unlike a rubber tire, blew out during flight, and the rocket - unable to swivel its nozzle to steer - sent the $100 million TDRS satellite it was carrying into a misshapen orbit. Beggs said the blowout was caused by heat tracking through the nozzle to the ''tire.'' The solution was to seal the passages. The third problem caused the losses of Westar 6, owned by Western Union and Palapa-B, owned by the government of Indonesia, both carried by PAMs. NASA wants to retrieve those satellites next November if the two owners pay the cost. Negotiations are proceeding, but there has been no decision. In the interview, Beggs also said that space shuttle operations will move ''step by step, probably over the next five or ten years,'' from the Johnson Space Center in Houston to the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The mission control center is in Texas, while the shuttle is launched from Florida. Beggs said the move ''will be something that takes place slowly, over time, because obviously you can't pick up and move it all overnight.'' But, he said, ''bit by bit, we're going to force the center of gravity on the shuttle operations from Johnson to Kennedy.'' ap-ny-05-03 1909EDT *************** ------------------------------ Date: 30 Apr 84 17:37:21-PDT (Mon) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: harpo!ulysses!gamma!pyuxww!pyuxhh!kurt @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: "WHADDYA MEAN ... Dont you know?" <-> _____ I am always supprised how little people know about the space shuttle. The gvmt of Spain was very proud of there part in the program. They built a special runway with NASA just for the use of the shuttle in an emergency. I think the problem is that the news (and newspapers) no longer give the shuttle the covverage that It deserves. The only way to fix this is to complain to thhe editors. BUt they dont have a net address do they ? :-) -- Kurt Gluck SPL 1c273a Bell Communications Research Inc 6 Corporate Place Piscataway NJ, 08854 ihnp4!pyuxhh!kurt (201)-561-7100 x2023 ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 06-May-84 0303 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #186 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 186 Today's Topics: Free flyers Re: Trivia Question (diamond rocket) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 5 May 1984 15:49:03-EDT From: Dale.Amon at CMU-RI-FAS Subject: Free flyers At this time there are at least three shuttle serviced free flyer platforms. 1) Fairchild Leasecraft: Has not yet flown, but will provide rented plugin space for industrial packages. Seems like a reasonable place for MACDAC and Johnson&Johnson to put their operational electrophoresis unit. 2) MBB SPAS: Has already flown. This is an ultra cheap free flyer. Cost less $10M to develope and build. Used off the shelf hardware like scuba tanks, etc to keep costs low. 3) NASA LDEF: currently in orbit with tomato seeds and other experiments. I don't think the governement need lift a finger to insure the heavens are filled with free flying pallets. The technology is old and simple, the economics are favorable. I would not be terribly surprised to see a privately funded and built MANNED space station in the 15 year time frame. There are certainly going to be commercial modules attached to a NASA station, and I think that this experience will thouroughly convince corporate leaders that: A) They can do it. B) They can make money at it. C) A space station is a log cabin, not an airplane and can thus be built at a tiny fraction of the cost that the NASA station will require. ('Hey Joe, would you give the Oxygen valve a good whack? I think it's stuck again") So let's keep NASA out in front, proving NEW ground instead of replowing the same old furrows. They can build the FIRST manned platform, the FIRST lunar habitat, the FIRST manned assay trip to an asteroid. Free enterprise can be counted upon to do the rest. In fact, if the government doesn't hurry up, they just might get left behind... ------------------------------ Date: 30 Apr 84 14:36:33-PDT (Mon) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: hplabs!tektronix!uw-beaver!ssc-vax!fluke!dms @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: Trivia Question (diamond rocket) Your diamond rocket may have a high melting point but it has another problem: It'll burn. It seems to me some Frenchman demonstrated that with a burning glass back in the days of the sun king. ---David ...{decvax!microsof,uw-beaver,allegra,lbl-csam,ssc-vax}!fluke!dms ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 07-May-84 0305 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #187 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 187 Today's Topics: listen to 150 MHz Russian satellites on your scanner First Person Launched in a Spacecraft Re: Emergency landings and OMS Re: NASA ( ** FLAME ** ) Re: spinoffs Re: "WHADDYA MEAN WE CAN'T CIRCLE FOR A LANDING???!!" Re: Arthur C. Clarke's 2010 Re: Trivia Question (diamond rocket) Re: EAFB May Be Used Throughout 1984 Re: Solar Max troubles - (nf) Re: Challenger's tight fuel budget Re: Moon bullets SMM Repairs Effected Partial eclipse coming on May 30th Re: Emergency landings and OMS ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 2 May 84 6:11:28-PDT (Wed) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: ihnp4!ihuxf!parnass @ Ucb-Vax Subject: listen to 150 MHz Russian satellites on your scanner x According to Monitoring Times magazine (May 1984, pg 11), Russian NAVSAT satellites operate on 150.000 MHz. It is claimed that they "are quite audible on most any scanner even with indoor antennas." Here in northern Illinois, I can hear these satellites for about 10 minutes every 2 hours on my scanner with a ground plane antenna at 17 feet! I even heard one faintly using a 19" piece of wire on the back of a different scanner! The telemetry sounds something like AFSK superimposed on a time standard signal. Has anyone else out heard these signals? -- ========================================================================== Bob Parnass, AT&T Bell Laboratories - ihnp4!ihuxf!parnass - (312)979-5414 ------------------------------ Date: Sunday, 6 May 1984 11:28:52 EDT From: Richard.Goldschmidt@cmu-cs-h.arpa To: space@mit-mc.arpa Subject: First Person Launched in a Spacecraft >From Parade Magazine, May 6, 1984: The first person launched in a spacecraft was an American woman - and a dead one at that. She was Margaret (Maggie) McGrew, a missile engineering executive at Patrick Air Force Base, Fla., in the early years of spaceflight developement and one of the first women to achieve career success in missle research. McGrew died in January 1956 at age 46. Her body was cremated, and the remains were shipped to the Boeing plant in California. There, in accordance with her wishes, friends sealed the ashes into the nose cone of a new Bomarc missle. The missle was launched that spring at Cape Canaveral, and the lift-off went flawlessly. It exploded at 40,000 feet, however, scattering McGrew's ashes over the Atlantic. Still, it secured her place as the first person - in the opinion of her friends - to be launched in a spacecraft. It wasn't until 1961 - five years later - that Soviet Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin's orbital flight qualified him as the first man in space. The first @i(living) woman to make the trip? Cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova, who was launched into orbit in 1963. (Idea submitted by Brad Whitacre, Melbourne, Fla.) ------------------------------ Date: 2 May 84 10:43:20-PDT (Wed) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: ihnp4!ihlts!rjnoe @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: Emergency landings and OMS Helium tanks provide the pressurization for the OMS, RCS, and the APUs. Roger Noe ihnp4!ihlts!rjnoe ------------------------------ Date: 2 May 84 4:44:12-PDT (Wed) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: decvax!mcnc!idis!mi-cec!tam @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: NASA ( ** FLAME ** ) ditto...and amen. ------------------------------ Date: 29 Apr 84 20:28:20-PDT (Sun) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: hplabs!hao!seismo!ut-sally!jsq @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: spinoffs The U.S. equivalent of Japan's MITI is Microelectronics and Computer Corp., or MCC, which is a consortium of a dozen or so firms (DEC, Intel, CDC, etc.). Evidently those companies didn't think a large number of companies doing duplicate reseach was cost-effective, either, or that the government was the appropriate entity to choose who should be funded. Of course both MITI and MCC are very goal-oriented and do little basic research (if basic research is taken to be that which has no immediate goal); we have NSF to fund that, and DARPA has in the past had a large effect in certain fields such as computer graphics and networking (they eventually wanted military networks, but were willing to take a while). I was under the impression that NASA's purpose is exploration of space and development of access to space, for both scientific and industrial uses (communication and weather satellites are early examples; IRAS is currently being noticed; pharmaceutical synthesis may be next). Spinoffs are a convenient way to show that even if you don't agree with NASA's purposes, the space program is beneficial, but spinoffs are not the object: the direct use of space is. -- John Quarterman, CS Dept., University of Texas, Austin, Texas 78712 USA jsq@ut-sally.ARPA, jsq@ut-sally.UUCP, {ihnp4,seismo,ctvax}!ut-sally!jsq ------------------------------ Date: 29 Apr 84 13:14:17-PDT (Sun) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: hplabs!hpda!fortune!foros1!rhino!marcum @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: "WHADDYA MEAN WE CAN'T CIRCLE FOR A LANDING???!!" As a previous article mentioned, there are numerous emergency landing strips available. If I recall, in addition to those right around The Cape, White Sands can be used, and there is a runway at Honolulu Int'l built specifically for use by the Shuttle in an emergency (I think it's 8R/26L, the "Coral Runway"). I also suspect that, if a real emergency cropped up, most any ol' 'port ina storm would suffice (i.e. ~10000' runway with few obstructions around). -- Alan M. Marcum Fortune Systems, Dearborn, Michigan ...!hplabs!hpda!fortune!rhino!marcum ------------------------------ Date: 1 May 84 13:20:13-PDT (Tue) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: hplabs!hao!kpno!astrovax!ks @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: Arthur C. Clarke's 2010 I have just learned heard something absolutely terrible about the upcoming film "2010: Odyssey 2", and I heard it directly from Arthur himself (appearing at GWU SEDS April 30). Arthur says that the writer of the screenplay for his film will be Peter Hyams. Who is he, you say? You're not going to like it. Peter Hyams wrote and directed "Capricorn One", the biggest piece of anti-space filth ever brought to deface the silver screen. And it wasn't a good adventure story either, even if you don't mind the political intonations. Arthur says that he's never met Hyams, but will meet him soon. Evidently MGM assigned him to the project. My expectations for the film have dropped greatly. We are also told that Tony Banks (??) will be writing an original score for the film, i.e. not much old classical music will be used. ------------------------------ Date: 2 May 84 13:47:19-PDT (Wed) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: hplabs!tektronix!orca!shark!hutch @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: Trivia Question (diamond rocket) As any jeweler who is a diamond-cutter can tell you, the diamond is a very hard crystal but it is also very brittle. It shatters very easily. The tensile strength of a material has definite bearing on whether it would be useful as a liner for rocket engines. Diamonds, besides burning, would shatter. Hutch ------------------------------ Date: 1 May 84 14:41:30-PDT (Tue) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: decvax!mcnc!duke!ucf-cs!giles @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: EAFB May Be Used Throughout 1984 The Representative from Brevard County (where KSC is located) held a press release recently, declaring that the above rumor was incorrect: KSC will remain the primary landing site for routine missions throughout the rest of the year. I have the newpaper article at home; but since our school term is over I keep forgetting to bring it. Hopefully I'll have the full text submitted by next week. On a tangent, the above representative (Bill Nelson) is also considered to be the best choice for first politician in space. His home district includes KSC, he is chairman of the Space and Technology sub-committee (or something similiar), has been very active supporting the space program, and if I recall correctly is in the military reserve. So, once NASA starts taking on passengers, I know who I suspect will be among the first! ave discordia going bump in the night ... bruce giles decvax!ucf-cs!giles university of central florida giles.ucf-cs@Rand-Relay orlando, florida 32816 ------------------------------ Date: 11 Apr 84 7:42:31-PST (Wed) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: hplabs!hao!seismo!brl-vgr!wmartin @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: Solar Max troubles - (nf) I'm mystified about this business regarding the fuel for the MMU's vs the Shuttle maneuvering fuel. Not only the network news people (NBC) but also the advisors (astronauts, scientists, whoever) were specifically discussing that Pinky's MMU fuel gauge was "red-lined"; that he only had enough MMU fuel to get back to the Shuttle, so he had to let Solar Max go and get back. There was no choice; it was a "mission rule". I assumed he ran out because he had the MMU thrusters on full while he hung on to Max trying to slow its rotation. It wasn't surprising that he would run out. And since they wanted to do the activity in sunlight, they had to wait until the next orbit anyway to continue, as they approached nightside. But what irked me was that NOBODY (advisors, newscritters, whatever) ever mentioned refueling the MMU -- they talked about using the OTHER MMU. They never said that it wasn't possible, that it would be possible but wasn't wise or safe, or that there wasn't any source for more MMU fuel, or ANYTHING! They just left the topic hang! Now I see net discussion saying that it wasn't the MMU fuel, but the shuttle thruster fuel that was the limiting factor. That is NOT what was clearly and specifically said at the time. The term "red-lined" was used repeatedly, and it was the MMU they were referring to. Now that the point is moot, I expect no one will ever say anything publically about it again, but I still am irritated by the failure of the people on the tv to ask and answer the OBVIOUS questions that occur to the audience. Will ------------------------------ Date: 11 Apr 84 15:38:34-PST (Wed) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: ihnp4!houxm!homxa!osd7 @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: Challenger's tight fuel budget Well, if this was an exceptional mission with respect to the maneuvers the shuttle had to perform, are there any plans to upgrade the fuel capacity so that the shuttle can be effective on Space Station construction, etc.? I just want to learn more, not critizicing. -- Orlando Sotomayor-Diaz/AT&T Bell Laboratories/201-949-1532 ....ihnp4!homxa!osd7 /Crawfords Crnr. Rd., Holmdel, NJ, 07733 ------------------------------ Date: 11 Apr 84 12:47:16-PST (Wed) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: harpo!ulysses!allegra!karn @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: Moon bullets There are also numerous perturbations to a lunar satellite due to the moon's triaxial ellipticity. These perturbations are much larger in relation to the two-body forces than they are for earth satellites, and many have the effect of changing perilune altitudes. The Apollo flights had to be very careful of these effects when in lunar orbits with perilunes of 10 km or so. Another interesting item is that the Apollo 11 landing overshot its intended target by some number of kilometers (5-7 comes to mind) because the precise nature of the moon's gravitational field was still unknown, even with all the experience from the Lunar Orbiter series. A primary goal of Apollo 12 was to achieve demonstratable accuracy in landing (based on Apollo 11 tracking results) by landing next to a defunct Surveyor. All this makes a story about rifle bullets fired from the surface of the moon going into lunar orbit pretty far fetched. Phil ------------------------------ Date: 11 Apr 84 12:32:57-PST (Wed) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: harpo!ulysses!allegra!alice!alb @ Ucb-Vax Subject: SMM Repairs Effected Mission specialists Melson and Van Hoften today effected repairs on the Solar Max satellite, replacing two defective units. NASA will know by tomorrow whether or not the repairs will enable SMM to be placed back into orbit. ------------------------------ Date: 07 May 84 0015 PDT From: Ross Finlayson Subject: Partial eclipse coming on May 30th To: space@MIT-MC.ARPA a013 2252 06 May 84 PM-Eclipse, Bjt,600 Nation Expected to See 'Diamond Necklace in the Sky' This Month By RANDOLPH E. SCHMID Associated Press Writer WASHINGTON (AP) - The rare sight of a ''diamond necklace in the sky'' may be visible to Americans this month, when the moon edges in front of the sun to provide a partial eclipse visible across much of the nation. Unlike the more dramatic total eclipses, the sun won't disappear completely this time - at least a tiny bit will remain shining on Earth, according to experts at the U.S. Naval Observatory. Instead of abandoning mankind - the implication of the Greek derivation of the word eclipse - the sun may instead provide an unusual display known as Baily's Beads. Because of their positions in the sky, the moon appears to be a tiny bit smaller than the sun when it moves in front. If the moon's surface were smooth, a simple ring of light would then form at the heigt of the eclipse. But instead, the moon has mountains and valleys. And in the seconds just before the maximum eclipse, light shining between the peaks gives the appearance of bright beads around the moon, a ''diamond necklace in the sky,'' as some have described it. Baily's Beads were named for the 18th century astronomer who discovered them. Naval Observatory spokeswoman Gail Cleere reports that a second rare phenomena is also possible during the eclipse - the shadow band effect. This looks like the wavy sunlight bands that can be seen at the bottom of a swimming pool. It is caused by the light being distorted by irregularities in the Earth's atmosphere. In the United States, only residents of Alaska will be unable to observe at least some of the eclipse, expected the morning of May 30, according to the U.S. Naval Observatory. But the best place to view it will be in the Southeast, along a path from just north of New Orleans to just south of Richmond, Va. Indeed, Ms. Cleere noted that Interstate 85 nearly parallels the path of the eclipse for more than 600 miles from Georgia to Virginia. Along that line the eclipse will be nearly total, with 99.8 percent of the sun covered by the moon. Across the rest of the United States and Mexico, a partial eclipse will be visible - with less of the sun blocked out farther from the line. The eclipse isn't total because the path of the moon around Earth is not a perfect circle. The closer the moon is to Earth the bigger it appears, the farther away the smaller. Thus, sometimes the moon blocks out the whole sun and sometimes, as this time, it doesn't. The eclipse will begin in the Pacific Ocean at 9:54 a.m. EDT, and will move eastward across Mexico and into the United States. It will be most visible in the late morning and early afternoon. It will peak, for example, at Petersburg, Va., at 12:43 p.m. EDT. Officials of the Naval Observatory stressed that at no time will it be safe to look directly at the sun. The sun will never completely disappear and the intensity of the light from even the small visible area can severely damage the eyes. Use of a cardboard with a pinhole to focus the image of the sun on a second sheet of cardboard is recommended. But do not look through the pinhole at the sun. As a safe alternative, they suggest, watch the event on television. Use of welder's glass or a double thickness of exposed black-and-white film are other methods that have been tried, but caution must be exercised and the sun watched for only a few seconds with these methods, officials said. ap-ny-05-07 0151EDT ********** ------------------------------ Date: 3 May 84 6:23:33-PDT (Thu) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: ihnp4!drutx!houxe!hogpc!houti!ariel!hou5f!hou5e!tgg @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: Emergency landings and OMS The shuttle uses He to allow the crew to play around with high-sqeeky voices to abate boredom. A secondary purpose is to pressurize the fuel tanks. Tom Gulvin AT&T IS - Holmdel ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 11-May-84 0310 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #188 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 188 Today's Topics: The Final Definitive Answer on the Fuel Question Re: Solar Max troubles - (nf) Interstellar Laser-Pushed Sails Re: Re: How to solve NASA's budget probl - (nf~^ SMM to be Released Re: Challenger's tight fuel budget Re: Obvious questions Re: Trivia Question (diamond rockets) SHUTTLE T.V. COVERAGE Congressman Green; text Re: Arthur C. Clarke's 2010 Re: The Final Definitive Answer on the Fuel Question 41C Coming to a Close Triskaidekaphobia Re: The "grabbing onto Solar Max" Problem Re: Getting it back to the Cape Optimistic Booster Words Re: how to grab a satellite Re: Shuttle landings & Orlando International 2010............ Re: spinoffs Re: spinoffs Scientists for a Manned Space Station, Press Release Emergency Landings Re: Shuttle Tiles Question Re: Shuttle Tiles Question Re: Emergency landings and OMS Bulletin Boards in Space Re: Purging corrosive propelants at alternate landing sites Technical info on shuttle cmsg cancel <121@lakehead.UUCP> cmsg cancel <119@lakehead.UUCP> Support of Manned Space Station Re: Emergency landings and OMS Re: Emergency landings and OMS Space Station Alert Re: Orbital mechanics - (nf) Re: Space Station Alert Re: Fuses in Solar Max, they protect the batteries Bulletin Boards in Space Sagan Seminar at Ames Res. Ctr. (reporting) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 11 Apr 84 16:27:50-PST (Wed) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: harpo!eagle!mhuxl!ulysses!allegra!alice!alb @ Ucb-Vax Subject: The Final Definitive Answer on the Fuel Question OK, this is an all encompassing answer to all the fuel questions. 1) Nelson's MMU did ''red-line'' on fuel. That is why he broke off the SMM stabilization attempt and flew back to the shuttle. 2) There was another, fully-fueled MMU on board. 3) The MMU's can be refueled in orbit in about 20 minutes. 4) The shuttle itself ran low on maneuvering fuel, due to numerous attempts to grab SMM with the RMS while the satellite was wobbling and tumbling. The fuel reserves for the front steering jets dropped to about 21 percent. This is why no further MMU-propelled EVA was executed; there may not have been enough shuttle fuel left to pick up the astronaut if his MMU failed. 5) There was no danger to reentry due to the low fuel reserve on the shuttle. 6) It was decided that there was enough shuttle maneuvering fuel (nitrogen tetroxide and monomethyl hydrazine, for those who are wondering) to attempt another grab at the SMM once it was stabilized (but still spinning). As an aside, the additional maneuvers performed Tuesday in which the snare was successful burned up only half the fuel that ground controllers thought they would. That should answer any and all questions. If I missed any, let me know. ------------------------------ Date: 11 Apr 84 16:13:23-PST (Wed) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: harpo!ulysses!allegra!karn @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: Solar Max troubles - (nf) As I understood it from the later news reports, Nelson's MMU did indeed require refilling, but it was far from empty - just at the point where the rules required a return. However, the crew tried a grab with the RMS arm later even with the nutation that had been introduced earlier and it was this attempt that ran the forward RCS propellant below the level at which further use of the MMU could be allowed. It was flatly stated then that the MMU would not be used again on this flight. However, this morning after the repair operation had been completed, they did indeed try out the MMUs again untethered! I guess the rules can be bent a little. It had occurred to me too at the time Nelson attempted to grab the solar array that this was an ill-advised thing to try. The possibility of introducing nutation didn't occur to me right away, I was more concerned about damage to the array arm. I also noticed later on, before we heard stories about the ground's concern, that the solar panels no longer seemed to be tracking the sun. I suspect that there will be some pointed questions asked of the crew after this mission, at least in private. Phil ------------------------------ Date: 11 Apr 84 11:47:00-PST (Wed) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: pur-ee!uiucdcs!uicsl!wombat @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Interstellar Laser-Pushed Sails The latest *Journal of Rocketry and Spacecraft* has an article by Robert L. (*Dragon's Egg*) Forward on interstellar laser-pushed sails. He gives details on an aluminum sail that would make it to Alpha Centauri in ~41 years. The laser would be focused through a Fresnel lens. The sail comes in two main parts: a smaller sail with the payload, surrounded by a sail with a larger surface area and a high reflectivity. At a given point, they separate, and the larger sail is accelerated away from the payload sail, plus, its high reflectivity focuses light back on the other side of the payload sail, thus slowing it (the p.s.) down for a leisurely glide into the Alpha Centauri system. He also writes about a three stage sail that would go to Epsilon Eridani and return, but I haven't read that far yet. Wombat ihnp4!uiucdcs!uicsl!wombat ------------------------------ Date: 11 Apr 84 11:36:00-PST (Wed) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: pur-ee!uiucdcs!uicsl!wombat @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: Re: How to solve NASA's budget probl - (nf~^ It's not easy to give money directly to NASA. When the Viking Fund had collected contributions for NASA to be used on Viking communication and study of data, they had to go through paperwork and regulations and absence of guidelines before NASA got the money, as I recall. But I don't think NASA was allowed to publicly guarantee the money would be used for Viking. Wombat ------------------------------ Date: 11 Apr 84 19:05:09-PST (Wed) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: harpo!ulysses!allegra!alice!alb @ Ucb-Vax Subject: SMM to be Released Solar Max has checked out, and the crew of the shuttle will release it shortly after 0400 EST Thursday morning. After it is redeployed facing the sun, the shuttle will tail it for one orbit. Meanwhile, on the ground, the situation for landing did not look good weatherwise, and NASA is considering extending the flight a day or two. Another alternative would be to land at EAFB. ------------------------------ Date: 11 Apr 84 19:02:05-PST (Wed) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: harpo!ulysses!allegra!karn @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: Challenger's tight fuel budget Yes, there is something called an "OMS kit" which can be installed in the orbiter's cargo bay to carry extra propellants for the Orbital Maneuvering System. This is intended mainly for very high altitude (relatively speaking) missions such as those to sun-synch orbit from Vandenburg. Phil ------------------------------ Date: 7 May 1984 14:34:44-EDT From: Walter.Smith at CMU-CS-SPICE Subject: Re: Obvious questions Not only do newscasters fail to ask the "OBVIOUS questions" regarding a mission, they often ignore (or don't understand) what's been said, and ask REALLY STUPID questions. My favorite example is from Jane Pauley during the last launch, when the external tank was to be dropped in the Pacific Ocean instead of its usual Indian Ocean target. Seconds after one of the on-camera experts explained that the change was because of the higher orbit required to reach Solar Max, she asked if the change was made for political reasons(!). Arrgh. Perhaps NBC could bring back NBC Overnight in the mornings (just for shuttle launches). ------------------------------ Date: 7 May 1984 1327 PDT From: Doug Freyburger Subject: Re: Trivia Question (diamond rockets) To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC Reply-To: DOUG@JPL-VLSI.ARPA A diamond rocket nozzle would work just fine if the fuel mixture produced a reducing enviroment instead of an oxidizing one. I can't think of any chemical way to do this, though. There is even a problem with some reducing enviroment chemistries. Take a nuclear heated hydrogen plasma. It would "anti-burn" the diamond into methane if it where hot enough. Diamond also has manufacturing problems that make it not worth while; it can't just be "grown" under reasonable conditions to a shape. I have heard that some are working on saphire nozzles for rockets. Saphire has almost the temperature performance, much better chemistry as a stable neutral substance, and it can actually be "grown" to shape. Is work still being done on this, and any progress that anyone knows about? (-)NX, Doug ------ ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 7 May 84 15:11 PDT From: ANDERSON.ES@XEROX.ARPA Subject: SHUTTLE T.V. COVERAGE To: SPACE@MIT-MC.ARPA cc: ANDERSON.ES@XEROX.ARPA I have talked my cable co. (Century Cable in Redondo Beach, Ca.) into broadcasting the shuttle video/audio signal available on COMSAT ch. 3 on their public access cable channel 3. They will begin with the next launch, which is currently scheduled for 6-20-84. This signal is available to anyone, and I don't believe cable companies need FCC or NASA approval to rebroadcast (according to Century Cable). Also, according to Century Cable, it is very easy for them to do and not at all expensive. Only 3 cable companies so far in the U.S. have rebroadcast the shuttle signals in the past (Group W Cable in Santa Monica, Ca., and a cable company each in Ohio and Wisconsin). I think it would be a great benifit to all space enthusiasts to call or write their cable companies and request that they do the same and to send letters of appreciation to those companies that do. Hopefully, if we show enough interest, there will eventually be 24 hour coverage of all space activities (maybe a dedicated space network) in the future. By the way, Century Cable was not even aware that the signal was available, so if you contact your cable co., you may enlighten them. Thankfully, the engineer I was talking with was also a space enthusiast and got most of his information the same way I do (monitoring JPL's NASA rebroadcast on 2 meter here in L.A.). Craig Anderson Xerox Corp. 213-536-7299 ------------------------------ Date: 7 May 1984 19:44:36-EDT From: Dale.Amon at CMU-RI-FAS Subject: Congressman Green; text (This is the text in full of a press release issued by Congressman Bill Green, R-NY) CONCERNS ABOUT PROPOSED MANNED SPACE STATION Congressman Bill Green (R-NY) today said American space scientists were concerned about the Administration's proposed manned space station and he said that Congress should not allow NASA to "lock us into a purely manned system." Green said he and many scientists that he surveyed were concerned because of the high costs of a manned space station could "put the sqeeze on other vital scientific programs." Green is ranking minority member of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on HUD and Independent Agencies and which is to vote on NASA appropriations in the near future. NASA is requesting $150 million in planning money for a manned station. Green said he is considering requiring NASA to "take a two track approach" that would include unmanned space platforms that would not depend upon a manned station. "A two-track system might be best," Green said, "as any cost overruns in the manned system would be somewhat less likely to take funds from an independent unmanned program. Furthermore. NASA's ability to fund the manned station without cutting other programs depends upon its receiving a 1% real increase in each year's budget. But the promise of that 1% from the Office of Management and Budget cannot be guaranteed given economic and political uncertainties in the future." Green said many scientists were concerned that cost overruns in the space station would jeopardize other programs, and noted that this happened when the Shuttle program jumped about 3% (to $8.8 billion from the original projected cost of $6.5 billion). "While a manned space station has some advantages, including human drama," Green said, "most scientists surveyed tell us they do not need a space station for their projects. Even among those who would welcome ar accept a station, more would prefer an unmanned station." At a press conference in Washington, Green released the results of a survey of members of the space science community that he had conducted. More than 75 percent of the respondents said their work did not require a space station. Forty-seven percent said they would support a space station even if it had no immediate scientific value, as it may have engineering, social or political value. Within this group, there was slightly more support for an unmanned station. Green noted that in testimony before his Subcommittee, Dr. George Keyworth, the President's chief scientific advisor, conceded that a manned station (with a projected cost of $8 billion) would be more expensive and that costs per experiment in space run five times more when done on a manned vehicle. "What we have to consider is mot only what we would _like to do_ but what we reasonably can _afford_ to do," Green said. "And while a manned space station may be desirable as a step in man's exploration of the stars, we should not permit one program to jeopardize other less dramatic but valuable scientific exploration." contact: Hank Roden 212-826-4466/202-225-2436 Release: April 30, 1983 ________________________________________________________________________ There will be furthur word on 'Scientists for a Manned Space Station'. Stay tuned to this channel for new bullitens, as the story is breaking... amon@cmu-ri-fas.arpa ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 7 May 84 18:24:56 PDT From: Douglas J. Trainor To: hplabs!hao!kpno!astrovax!ks @ Ucb-Vax CC: SPACE@MIT-MC Subject: Re: Arthur C. Clarke's 2010 [In regards to the unsigned message about 2010...] So you don't like Hyams. Well I don't like people ripping apart directors and actors solely based on one film. The news media suffers greatly from this. So CAPRICORN ONE wasn't up to par, you can't condemn the guy forever. Have you seen one of his more recent films, like OUTLAND? You make it look like Clarke doesn't approve. Clarke & Hyams have been in constant communication (via computer no less) since the beginning. As for the music, Tony Banks (of Genesis) is great. It would be easy for Hyams to pull out some classic, I admire him for doing something new. Why don't you wait and see the film... Douglas James Trainor Video Image Associates, MGM/UA Marina Del Rey, CA ------------------------------ Date: 13 Apr 84 9:46:03-PST (Fri) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: ihnp4!inuxc!ralph @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: The Final Definitive Answer on the Fuel Question A couple of additional points: 1) The "red-line" on the MMU was pretty high. Nelson had just under 50% of his fuel remaining when he returned to the shuttle. 2) The shuttle is the second backup in the event of an MMU failure. If an astronaut has an MMU failure, then either the shuttle itself or another crew member in the second MMU would go for the rescue. Because the shuttle was low on fuel (down to 21% in the forward RCS) [See Adam's article for more details], the second MMU was tested inside the cargo bay only. Ox did the flying on that one. CNN provides much better coverage of inflight events than the networks. They were very clear about the entire fuel issue and what it meant to the mission. Ralph Keyser ihnp4!inuxc!ralph ------------------------------ Date: 12 Apr 84 17:59:05-PST (Thu) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: harpo!ulysses!allegra!alice!alb @ Ucb-Vax Subject: 41C Coming to a Close With an empty cargo bay, NASA's symbol of success for this mission, the crew of 41C prepared to come home tomorrow. Landing is set for 0707 EST, 13 April, at KSC. If there is early ground fog, the landing can be postponed one orbit, until 0847 EST. 41D, the debut mission of the Discovery, is due to launch on 19 June. ------------------------------ Date: 12 Apr 84 17:00:29-PST (Thu) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: harpo!ulysses!allegra!alice!alb @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Triskaidekaphobia The shuttle will land tomorrow, Friday the 13th. The Solar Maximum Satellite completed 23,013 orbits today. Tomorrow (landing day) is 13 years to the day that Apollo 13 sufferred its explosion en route to the moon. The shuttle will land after its 91st (7 times 13) orbit. James D. van Hoften, a mission specialist, is 39 (3 times 13). George D. Nelson was born on 13 July. Call it as you will... ------------------------------ Date: 19 Apr 84 9:21:45-PST (Thu) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: hplabs!tektronix!orca!warner @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: The "grabbing onto Solar Max" Problem [bugs] Could this be the space equivalent of steer riding in a rodeo? Grabing a rotating object in space could turn into a wild ride. Maybe this will be one of the asteroid miner's sports. ------------------------------ Date: 18 Apr 84 8:35:41-PST (Wed) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: hplabs!tektronix!uw-beaver!ssc-vax!fluke!witters @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: Getting it back to the Cape There was a plan at one time to mount regular jet engines on the Shuttle for test flights. At some point, NASA decided to buy a used 747 and do drop tests instead. I'm not sure, but I think there may have been a plan to mount jet engines on the Shuttle after an orbital mission, and fly it back to the Cape. The engines would be removed before the next orbital flight. Are you out there NASA? Please give us the straight scoop on this. ------------------------------ Date: 3 May 84 18:53:59-PDT (Thu) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: harpo!ulysses!allegra!alice!alb @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Optimistic Booster Words NASA today reported some encouraging words on two troublesome secondary stage rockets, the PAM and the IUS. McDonnel Douglas, which manufactures the PAM, which put two satellites into errant orbits this past year and 18 previous successes, says it has devised a method whereby it can tell which rockets will work and which will not. The method involves a CAT-scan-like test of the rocket nozzle, pinpointed as the source of trouble earlier this year. The report comes too late to launch a Canadian satellite on the 19 June mission (Canada has rescheduled the satellite for a 1985 mission), but it does now make it possible to launch two communications satellites in August. NASA also reported that the IUS will undergo one more test-firing, and if that works well, it will be ready for use in launching a twice-postponed DoD package and the TDRS-2 satellite. ------------------------------ Date: 19 Apr 84 9:09:32-PST (Thu) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: harpo!ulysses!burl!clyde!watmath!utzoo!kcarroll @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: how to grab a satellite * When the astronaut grabbed the solar max satellite in an attempt to stop its rotation, he wasn't planning to change the rotation rate by "giving it a shove". Instead, he was planning to activate the "attitude hold" feature of his manoeuvering unit. The gyros in the MMU would sense that their reference platform was rotating, and send out commands to the MMU's gas jets to apply a torque in the direction required to stop the rotation (I assume). -Kieran A. Carroll ...decvax!utzoo!kcarroll ------------------------------ Date: 19 Apr 84 21:06:54-PST (Thu) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: decvax!mcnc!duke!ucf-cs!giles @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: Shuttle landings & Orlando International During the approach for the first (and only) KSC landing, the ground track of the shuttle passed directly over Orlando International Airport. I should mention that this should be a relatively rare occurance; those ground tracks covered nearly all of Central Florida when the paper publishes them in case of an (emergency) landing at KSC. For those unfamiliar with Central Florida, OIA (MCO on tags) has two 15000 foot ex-military runways and is less than 50 miles from KSC. Yet, when the shuttle passed overhead, I recall it was at something like 60,000 feet! The airspace controllers generously gave up 3000 ft of their own airspace, lowering the ceiling for all flights thoughout Central Florida to 30,000 feet, so you can see that there was no real effect from the shuttle. As to the sonic booms, that may become a problem. I know several people who were awaken by the shuttle passing overhead, and I could imagine an aircraft at half the distance could be in for a surprise. But, nothing has been mentioned here, despite generally good coverage as a local event. ave discordia going bump in the night ... bruce giles decvax!ucf-cs!giles university of central florida giles.ucf-cs@Rand-Relay orlando, florida 32816 ------------------------------ Date: 8 May 84 08:22 PDT (Tuesday) From: DBraunstein.ES@XEROX.ARPA Subject: 2010............ Re: SPACE Digest V4 #187 To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC.ARPA cc: DBraunstein.ES@XEROX.ARPA AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!! I didn't expect 2010 to be exactly like 2001, but I least expect it to stand on it's own. But I agree with you that it is a little disconcerning that MGM chose Hyams for the screenplay. We'll just have to wait and see. Don't forget that Dune is also coming out at the same time. Oh, yeah Tony Banks is the keyboardist for the band Genesis, one of the premier art rock bands of the '70s, but have no fear they are not a punk band in any way(- remember the Lamb Lies Down on Broadway ~'74). David Braunstein ------------------------------ Date: 19 Apr 84 9:15:33-PST (Thu) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: harpo!ulysses!burl!clyde!watmath!utzoo!kcarroll @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: spinoffs * To BILLW@SRI-KL: I attempted to send you a reply through the reply facility of our news system, but it didn't seem to make it through to you. So, here's the message: Please send me a copy of that NASA economic-benefits report, if you have any of them left. My address is... Kieran A. Carroll University of Toronto Institute for Aerospace Studies 4925 Dufferin Street Toronto, Ontario Canada M3H 5T6 Thank-you! ------------------------------ Date: 19 Apr 84 13:37:07-PST (Thu) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: harpo!ulysses!burl!clyde!watmath!utzoo!henry @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: spinoffs dietz%USC-CSE@USC-ECL.ARPA comments: ............................. I still think NASA spending on specific space projects is a poor way to foster general technological progress. It certainly isn't necesary (Japan spends much less on space, for example). By "basic research" I really meant to include "basic development": research intended to produce new materials, technologies, etc., such as Japan's MITI sponsored research. ... My understanding is that Japan, until quite recently, has spent almost nothing on basic research or basic development. Most of their work has been on production and reliability, with heavy reliance on basic R+D done elsewhere. It remains to be seen whether their recent initiatives in home-grown basic research are going to work; these efforts cannot yet be cited as evidence for anything. Venture capital investment is very good at bringing technologies to market, i.e. tidying up the rough edges and selling it. It does very little for making the blasted stuff work in the first place, because basic R+D is too long-term to be attractive to venture capital. With the exception of a few farsighted large corporations, it is hard to find *anybody* who is willing to sink a substantial amount of money into work that is really long-term. A typical manager's idea of "long-term planning" is two years. -- Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology {allegra,ihnp4,linus,decvax}!utzoo!henry ------------------------------ Date: 8 May 1984 19:57:05-EDT From: Dale.Amon at CMU-RI-FAS Subject: Scientists for a Manned Space Station, Press Release Scientists for a Manned Space Station --------------------------------------------------------------------- FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE April 30, 1984 Contact: Dr. Robert Jastrow (603) 646-3361 Joe Hopkins (206) 773-7984 In today's competitive world, the United States must depend more than ever on our scientific vision and our commitment to technological excellence. Therefore, after a decade of neglect, America needs to undertake major new investments in our civilian space enterprise. Many leading U.S. scientists support a bold new venture in space and see a manned space station as an essential first step towards any such effort. A partial listing of leading scientists who support a manned space station as a doorway to longer-term goals follows [affiliations listed only for identification purposes only.]: Prof. Paul Coleman President, Universities Space Research Association Earth and Space Sciences Dept., UCLA Dr. Robert Jastrow Earth Sciences Dept., Dartmouth College Former Director, Goddard Institute for Space Studies Dr. James Fletcher Former Administrator, NASA Prof. Gerard O'Neill Physics Dept., Princeton University Prof. Marvin Minsky Former Director, Artificial Intelligence Lab, MIT Dr. Peter Glaser Vice President, Arthur D. Little, Inc. Prof. James Koutsky Chemical Engineering Dept., University of Wisconsin Prof. Gregory Benford Physics Dept., University of California-Irvine Prof. Gerald Rupert Chairman, Dept. of Geology and Geophysics, University of Missouri-Rolla Prof. James H. Lawler Former Chairman, Chemical and Nuclear Engineering Dept., Trident Technical College, Charleston, S.C. Dr. Philip Chapman Arthur D. Little, Inc. Dr. Lawrence A. Taylor University of Tennessee Prof. John Park Vice Chancellor, University of Missouri-Rolla Prof. Bill Johns Materials Science Dept., Washington State University Prof. Paul Cloutier Space Physics and Astronomy Dept., Rice University Dr. Hugh R. Anderson Senior Scientist, Science Applications, Inc. Dr. Robert Bussard Nuclear Physicist ------------------------------ Date: 27 Apr 84 3:18:25-PST (Fri) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: harpo!ulysses!allegra!alice!alb @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Emergency Landings There was some problem with this message before, I will will repost. The shuttle has emergency landing sites in Dakar, Senegal (primary abort landing during first phase of launch), Rota, Spain (former primary abort site), EAFB (primary abort after one orbit site), White Sands Missile Base (secondary abort after one orbit site), and a site in Japan. In the unlikely event that all of these are stricken by bad weather at once, the shuttle can land at any airport with a 15,000 foot runway (Orlando, most all of your international airports, military airports, etc.) So a place to land will never be a problem. ------------------------------ Date: 27 Apr 84 20:57:22-PST (Fri) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: hplabs!hplabsc!faunt @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: Shuttle Tiles Question The thermal conductivity of the tile material is low enough that one end of my sample piece 3"x1"x1" can be red hot and the other end can be held in your hand. I got the sample at the first launch. ------------------------------ Date: 27 Apr 84 8:19:27-PST (Fri) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: ihnp4!ihlts!rjnoe @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: Shuttle Tiles Question > I seem to recall a news report that featured a guy heating a tile > with a torch for about a minute, then picking up the tile with his > bare hands and not being burned. > T. C. Wheeler The person probably picked up a tile by its corners, which can indeed be done safely. Handling a face of a tile would seriously burn you. Roger Noe ihnp4!ihlts!rjnoe ------------------------------ Date: 5 May 84 22:01:14-PDT (Sat) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: hplabs!hao!kpno!amd70!phil @ Ucb-Vax Subject: -- Phil Ngai (408) 749-5286 {ucbvax,decwrl,ihnp4,allegra,intelca}!amd70!phil ------------------------------ Date: 1 May 84 10:12:46-PDT (Tue) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: harpo!seismo!brl-tgr!brl-vgr!ron @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: Emergency landings and OMS He tanks? What does the shuttle do with Helium? Fission engines? -Ron ------------------------------ Date: 3 May 84 12:14:51-PDT (Thu) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: harpo!ulysses!allegra!karn @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Bulletin Boards in Space Be sure to see this article on page 88 of the May 1984 BYTE. It is an excellent description of the proposed PACSAT (Packet Radio Satellite) that AMSAT and VITA are working on. Phil Karn, KA9Q ------------------------------ Date: 30 Apr 84 14:38:45-PDT (Mon) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: hplabs!hao!seismo!rlgvax!cvl!umcp-cs!judd @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: Purging corrosive propelants at alternate landing sites some one mentioned that the OMS produces rather light thrust (few hundred lbs). Since this is the only fuel left on-board why not turn the shuttle 'round w/ a tractor and then taxi about untill all fuel is gone?? it might be hard on the OMS motors but safer in the long run. -- Spoken: Judd Rogers Arpa: judd.umcp-cs@CSNet-relay Uucp:...{allegra,seismo}!umcp-cs!judd ------------------------------ Date: 6 May 84 14:00:24-PDT (Sun) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: hplabs!hao!ames-lm!eugene @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Technical info on shuttle Shuttle documentation can easily fill several rooms of a building. My suggestion is, if you want simple general documents write NASA HQ in Washington DC or the public information office of the nearest NASA Center. Get an idea from these documents what you really want. The Manned Space Center in Houston is probably the best. You can also write contractors such as Rockwell in Downey, CA for lots of info. You should find that most of this stuff is free. I wrote away and got TONS of it when I was in 9th grade, more than any one could want, the only problem is that it get outdated so fast. --eugene miya NASA Ames ------------------------------ Date: 3 May 84 12:12:26-PDT (Thu) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: harpo!ulysses!burl!clyde!watmath!lakehead!gamiddleton @ Ucb-Vax Subject: cmsg cancel <121@lakehead.UUCP> ------------------------------ Date: 3 May 84 12:03:41-PDT (Thu) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: harpo!ulysses!burl!clyde!watmath!lakehead!gamiddleton @ Ucb-Vax Subject: cmsg cancel <119@lakehead.UUCP> ------------------------------ Date: 4 May 84 7:55:54-PDT (Fri) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: hplabs!tektronix!teklds!hercules!marcw @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Support of Manned Space Station The proposal for the manned space station is meeting its first major opposition in the House Appropriations Committee. If you support funding for this station call: Ed Boland (Committee chairman) (202) 225-3241 and/or Bill Green (Committee co-chairman) (202) 225-3481 and voice your support. To be most effective, calls should be made before Tuesday, May 8, 1984. Thank you for your time and support. Marc Wells via uucp: ...!{dec | ucb}vax!tektronix!marcw via CSNET: tektronix!marcw@tek via ARPAnet: tektronix!marcw.tek@rand-relay ------------------------------ Date: 4 May 84 13:02:35-PDT (Fri) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: decvax!ittvax!dcdwest!mees @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: Emergency landings and OMS Forgive me if this has been posted before. I've been subscribing for quite awhile and have never seen an answer to this question: some of you keep referring to "technical references" on the shuttle. Can someone please send me titles and probable locations where I can obtain same? Thanks. jim decvax!ittvax!dcdwest!mees ucbvax!sdcsvax!dcdwest!mees (619) 578-3080 (last resort) ------------------------------ Date: 2 May 84 11:00:15-PDT (Wed) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: harpo!ulysses!burl!clyde!watmath!utzoo!kcarroll @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: Emergency landings and OMS * If the shuttle does have helium tanks (I'm pretty sure that it does, but must admit that I've not checked any technical references), then it probably uses them to store the helium that's used to pressurize the hydrazine fuel used by the orbital manoeuvering engines and attitude control engines. The pressurized helium is used to force the fuel out of its storage tanks, rather than using heavier and more complicated fuel pumps to provide pressurized fuel to the engines. -Kieran A. Carroll ...decvax!utzoo!kcarroll ------------------------------ Date: 5 May 84 20:34:33-PDT (Sat) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: ihnp4!inuxc!fred @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Space Station Alert I received the following Spacepac alert Saturday May 5, 1984 --------------------------------------------------------------- SPACEPAC Emergency Alert Suite S 2801-B Ocean Park Blvd Santa Monica CA 90405 VICTORY IS NEAR: ONE MORE SHORT, FOCUSED, MAXIMUM EFFORT IS REQUIRED! Thanks in part to your efforts, the space station victory is within sight. Of the three swing-vote Congressmen that we asked people to contact in the last E-COM message, one is now on our side and the other two are leaning in our direction. Dr. Hans Mark, Deputy Administration of NASA, has recently written us commending our pro space station efforts. We have come from behind to a position where we have at least an even chance of victory despite significant organized opposition. This battle is being fought in the most difficult of all the subcommittees that the space station legislation is faced with. If we lose here, we will be forced to engage in a long series of expensive time-consuming battles, the main objective of which will be damage control. Thus we are calling upon everyone for a short, maximum effort drive aimed at obtaining a decisive victory. PLEASE IMMEDIATELY CALL OR TELEGRAM CONGRESSMAN EDWARD P. BOLAND, even if you have recently done so. As Chairman, he is by far the most powerful Congressman an the Committee. At this point his blessing would be decisive. WE HAVE UNTIL THE END OF BUSINESS HOURS ON TUESDAY, MAY 8, TO REACH CONGRESSMAN BOLAND BY PUBLIC OPINION TELEGRAM OR BY PHONE. Phone calls should be made during business hours in Washington; BOLAND'S PHONE NUMBER IS (202) 225-5601. Public Opinion Telegrams (20 words or less, address not needed) may be sent any hour of the day or night by calling Western Union at the toll-free number listed in the white pages of your phone book. ASK CONGRESSMAN BOLAND TO SUPPORT FULL FUNDING ($150 MILLION) FOR THE PERMANENTLY MANNED SPACE STATION. Don't forget to ask your friends to help. The space station war has become an enormous undertaking. Examples of the types of activities that L-5 and Spacepac are engaged in include: E-COM; phone tree alerts; mail to people outside of our collective membership; local and foreign chapter alerts; efforts to obtain help from other organizations; special local efforts aimed at key Congressmen, such as visits from our local people; Congressional testimony; potential Spacepac donations to campaigns; Washington lobbying activity (Gary Oleson, our Washington representative, has been working only half time for the last three months in order to volunteer more time to these efforts); as well as an enormous amount of volunteer time. We do this because it is important. It is also expensive. We need not only your time, but also your dollars. These should be sent to Spacepac (Dept. X) at the above return address. Remember, you are entitled to a 50% tax credit for the first $100 donated ($200 for couples), whether you itemize or not. Our entire internation network is totally mobilized and committed. The system is under enormous strain. We need whatever help you can give. Signed: Mark M Hopkins, Spacepac Chairman, L-5 Society Executive Vice Pres. (E-COM software by Lagrange Systems, 3231 Audley Suit 104 Houston TX 77098) ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- OK, you have all read it. I hear a lot of lip banging on this net about support for the space program and the space station. Here is your chance to do something more productive than pounding a keyboard. CALL NOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Fred Mendenhall AT&T CP Indianapolis, Indiana ------------------------------ Date: 5 May 84 14:43:00-PDT (Sat) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: pur-ee!uiucdcs!uiuccsb!emrath @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: Orbital mechanics - (nf) #R:decwrl:-750600:uiuccsb:15700011:000:327 uiuccsb!emrath May 5 16:43:00 1984 Thanks, I did that same sanity check, but on the mission in question, their orbit went to something like 250-290nm, so bringing them down 80 or so wouldn't be enough. I guess you had to be there. Anyway, it makes me realize that when they say LEO, they mean it! Perry Emrath, UofIL ...{decvax|inuxc}!pur-ee!uiucdcs!emrath ------------------------------ Date: 7 May 84 9:00:10-PDT (Mon) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: hplabs!tektronix!uw-beaver!uw-june!palmer @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: Space Station Alert <> It's time to get on the horn and start the wheels of politics rolling. Call Congressman EDWARD P. BOLAND, (202) 225-5601. He is Chairman of the House Appropriations committee, which makes him rather influential. Ask him to support FULL FUNDING FOR A PERMANENTLY MANNED SPACE STATION. We have until the end of business hours on Tuesday, May 8 to get our voices in. CALL NOW. If it is after Tuesday, call him anyway. ANY statement of support will help. I called his office at 10:40 EDT this morning, and they had already logged 50 calls. This is what is known, in political circles, as a groundswell, and it will not be ignored IF WE KEEP IT UP. Phone today, it will make the future a much better place to live in. That's CONGRESSMAN EDWARD P. BOLAND (202) 225-5601. Do it. David Palmer ------------------------------ Date: 8 May 84 12:35:47-PDT (Tue) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: hplabs!oliveb!jerry @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: Fuses in Solar Max, they protect the batteries The fuses are not there to protect the module. They are there to protect the power supply! The idea is that if module X shorts out it can drain the battery dead. Module X might have a minor function or even have a redundant backup in module X2. But if the space craft loses power then thats the whole ball of wax. The telemetry and control radio link is lost and all other modules stop functioning. And of course it might be possible for the overload to overheat the surrounding modules. Given a real short circuit and no fuses they would never have been able to cancel the tumble from ground control and the repair mission would have failed! Resettable fuses are a nice idea but would weigh and cost more. It's a trade off with including a larger experiment package or bigger battery/solar cells. Also they would have their own reliability factor. Jerry Aguirre {hplabs|fortune|ios|tolerant|allegra|tymix}!oliveb!jerry ------------------------------ Date: 3 May 84 12:14:51-PDT (Thu) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: harpo!ulysses!allegra!karn @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Bulletin Boards in Space Be sure to see this article on page 88 of the May 1984 BYTE. It is an excellent description of the proposed PACSAT (Packet Radio Satellite) that AMSAT and VITA are working on. Phil Karn, KA9Q ------------------------------ Date: 9 May 84 9:50:31-PDT (Wed) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: hplabs!hao!kpno!amd70!phil @ Ucb-Vax Subject: -- Phil Ngai (408) 749-5286 {ucbvax,decwrl,ihnp4,allegra,intelca}!amd70!phil ------------------------------ Date: 9 May 84 16:47:01-PDT (Wed) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: hplabs!ames-lm!eugene @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Sagan Seminar at Ames Res. Ctr. (reporting) Today, May 9, Carl Sagan (Cornell) spoke to the Center about the search of life in the Universe. Hopefully, since he is in the Bay Area, others will get a chance to hear him in public lectures (today's was for Ames personnel only). The following is a summary of topics. Sagan began by making a distinction between the search for life versus the search for intelligent life starting in the solar system. He covered the work preceeding and including Harold Urey and Stanley Miller. The focus then moved to space looking first at the basic results of the Viking Mission to Mars, and then the latest Voyager Titan data. (He hinted that we should put together a Titan probe because of previous Ames probes to Venus, Jupiter and Saturn.) If any person doubts that Carl has foresaken research for public life, it must be noted that he presented his latest research analysing and modelling the atmosphere of Titan [this is the latest stuff]. He detailed atmospheric profiles for complex organic molecules which won't be reproduced here. Lastly after a light set of questions, he gave a plug for the joint research done on the nuclear winter study with Jim Pollock, Brian Toon, and Tom Ackermann (all at Ames). --eugene miya NASA Ames Research Center {hplabs,hao,dual,research}!ames-lm!statvax!eugene ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 12-May-84 0304 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #189 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 189 Today's Topics: Administrivia Re: Support of Manned Space Station Re: Space Station Alert Re: Why 104% thrust Re: Space Station Alert ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 11 May 84 12:46:26-PDT (Fri) From: Ted Anderson Subject: Administrivia Sorry for the last massive space digest. Our system was down for several days due to a disk crash and although nothing was lost there was an awful lot of queued mail. I should have held the log jam back and let it out a little at a time but I forgot. My apologies, Ted Anderson ------------------------------ Date: 8 May 84 9:40:26-PDT (Tue) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: hplabs!sdcrdcf!sdcsvax!akgua!clyde!burl!ulysses!allegra!karn @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: Support of Manned Space Station Congressman Boland's office tells me that they've had about 400 calls so far. Keep it up! Phil ------------------------------ Date: 8 May 84 10:21:20-PDT (Tue) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: ihnp4!oddjob!jeff @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: Space Station Alert <> Why do we need a Space Station???? Jeff Bishop || University of Chicago ...ihnp4!oddjob!jeff || Astrology & Astrophysics Center ------------------------------ Date: 9 May 84 21:45:11-PDT (Wed) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: hplabs!hao!seismo!ut-sally!ut-ngp!pyle @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: Why 104% thrust The often heard phrase "104 percent thrust" refers to 104% of the engines' RATED or design thrust. That is, the engine is designed to produce a given thrust for a given time before major overhaul. In the case of the Shuttle Main Engines, the engines are designed to produce a higher than rated thrust but at the sacrifice of time between repairs and/or failures. An analogy is that automobiles are designed for typical driving with maximum speeds on the order of 55 MPH (at least in theory, they are). You can choose to drive at higher speeds but the vehicle will require more maintenance or it won't last as long due to the increased wear. Keith Pyle UUCP: . . .{ihnp4,seismo,ctvax,kpno,gatech}!ut-sally!ut-ngp!pyle ARPA: pyle@ut-ngp ------------------------------ Date: 9 May 84 9:50:43-PDT (Wed) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: pur-ee!CS-Mordred!Pucc-H.Physics.els @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: Space Station Alert Astrology ???? and Astrophysics ? I guess that explains why someone (possibly) involved in Astrophysics would ask why a space station is needed!! ------------------------------------------------------------------------ | "Things always look | A message from the mental maze that darkest just before | calls itself: they go totally black!!" | | -- Col. Hannibal Smith | ERIC STROBEL | --------------------------------| UUCP: {decvax,ucbvax,harpo,allegra,inuxc,seismo,teklabs}!pur-ee!Physics:els INTERNET: els @ pur-phy.UUCP ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 13-May-84 0302 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #190 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 190 Today's Topics: Re: transponder? scramjet? Re: LDEF orbital elements Re: LDEF orbital elements IMAX IN SPACE! R. Forward's Laser Light Sail ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 9 May 84 23:47:43-PDT (Wed) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: hplabs!hpda!fortune!amd70!dual!proper!chris @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: transponder? scramjet? A question..... As to the tracking cameras that NASA uses to track the shuttle after liftoff, etc.... Does the shuttle have any type of transponder for identification/tracking purposes, or is it all done by ground radar? Also, I was idly wondering how practical it might have been to put a ram/scramjet engine on the shuttle. The former type has no moving parts, will *ONLY* work well at mach > 2 velocities, and consumes relatively little fuel/thrust. It would seem like a good idea..... Tnx in advance... Chris Hayes ucbvax!dual!proper!chris ------------------------------ Date: 10 May 84 15:03:51-PDT (Thu) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: ihnp4!houxm!mhuxl!ulysses!allegra!mouton!karn @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: LDEF orbital elements Figure approximately 530 km circular altitude in a 28.5 deg inclination orbit. The orbit will decay over the LDEF's stay in orbit by perhaps 20-30 km. Due to the low inclination, however, the LDEF will probably not be visible from the northern parts of the US. Phil ------------------------------ Date: 11 May 84 10:25:29-PDT (Fri) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: ihnp4!ihlts!rjnoe @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: LDEF orbital elements Yes, LDEF is almost 10 meters tall, but it's oriented by gravity gradient so that one sees the "end", only about 4.3 meters wide (a dodecagon, I think). Roger Noe ihnp4!ihlts!rjnoe ------------------------------ Date: 10 May 84 11:51:28-PDT (Thu) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: ihnp4!houxm!mhuxl!abnjh!cbspt005 @ Ucb-Vax Subject: IMAX IN SPACE! According to a UPI story, the first 27 minutes of film made in space with the large 70MM IMAX movie camera was screened unedited on May 9 for the first time for a small audience of NASA and Smithsonian Institution officials at the National Air and Space Museum. The film was shot on the Challenger's most recent mission. The astronauts have not yet seen the footage, but will at a private screening next week. IMAX Systems Corp. of Toronto plans to have the final half-hour movies ready in the summer of 1985 after more footage is hot on the next shuttle flight in June and on a flight scheduled for October. The film is a project of IMAX, the Air and Space Museum, and Lockheed Corp. "When the first frames of the high fidelity 70MM film appeared on the 50 by 75 foot screen at the museum, the audience gasped. It appeared as if you were in the shuttle Challenger, looking through a rear cockpit window at a bus-sized satellite suspended over the shuttle's cargo bay on the end of the ship's robot arm. Part of the blue,tan and white Earth and the blackness of space served as a panoramic backdrop as the ship cruised at more than 17,000 mph and some 300 miles high. The next frames showed the big satellite, called the Long Duration Exposure Facility, coasting along beside the Challenger after the satellite had been released by the astronauts. Then there were shots of tan western Africa and the cloud-pocked South Atlantic Ocean. One of the sunrises the astronauts saw every hour and a half also was captured on film, beginning with various shades of blue topped by a layer of orange gradually brightening until finally the sun appeared. After a few inside shots of astronauts Robert crippen, Dick Scobee, Terry Hart, James van Hoften and george Nelson, the camera showed the Solar Max sun-watching satellite the astronauts retrieved. It was shown mounted in the open payload awaiting repairs." -Eric Carter AT&T-IS S.Plainfield,NJ {allegra,mhuxl,akgua}!abnjh!cbspt005 ------------------------------ Date: 12 May 1984 11:49-PDT From: dietz%USC-CSE@USC-ECL.ARPA To: space@MIT-MC.ARPA Cc: forward@USC-ECL.ARPA, rforward@USC-ECL.ARPA Subject: R. Forward's Laser Light Sail Forward has used his laser propelled light sail in a science fiction story. The story appeared in abbreviated form in Analog as "Rocheworld", and has been published in full length as "The Flight of the Dragonfly". The full length version goes into considerable detail about the laser light source. ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 14-May-84 0302 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #191 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 191 Today's Topics: Re: scramjets ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 13 May 1984 1329-PDT From: LEE at SU-STAR Subject: Re: scramjets To: SPACE%MIT-MC at SCORE Reply-To: LEE at SU-STAR Indeed, a scramjet might be very interestingas part of a hybrid propulsion system. They could be used during the supersonic/hypersonic atmospheric flight phase of a Shuttle-type vehicle ascent to orbit. Unfortunately, according to Ben Rich, the new boss of Lockheed's Skunk Works, a scramjet has yet to achieve any net positive thrust.(note that this was a public statemet) Any propulsion people out there willing to give an opinion? Emilio P. Calius Dept. of Aero & Astro Stanford ------ ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 15-May-84 0304 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #192 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 192 Today's Topics: Re: SPACE Digest V4 #190 Re: big bangs / ultimate problems Re: Fuses in Solar Max Westar 6 AKM fired Re: big bangs / ultimate problems (Monopoles) Westar 6 Orbit Stabilized Discovery Moved to VAB Re: transponder? scramjet? Re: NASA spinoffs Re: SPACE Digest V4 #191 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: kyle.wbst@XEROX.ARPA Date: 14 May 84 10:47:34 EDT Subject: Re: SPACE Digest V4 #190 To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC.ARPA cc: kyle.wbst@XEROX.ARPA Re: Chris Hayes question about a transponder or radar on the shuttle for the tracking cameras... I've been at press site 39 for two Apollo launches, and one shuttle launc and saw a large tracking camera set up for video tape applications which (if memory serves me correctly) was locked on by infrared sensors tracking the exhaust from the launch vehicle (at least that's what the operator told me). Perhaps that's why they want clear days for launches. Earle. ------------------------------ Date: 11 May 84 11:57:35-PDT (Fri) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: hplabs!hao!seismo!cmcl2!floyd!clyde!watmath!utzoo!kcarroll @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: big bangs / ultimate problems * The New Physice (according to a recent Scientific American article) indicate that magnetic monopoles, should they exist (the theories predict that they should, but in minute numbers) would be able to catalyze the decay of protons, attended with a rather vast release of energy. If we could find and capture a few monopoles, they'd make a greatpower source, better even than fusion promises to be. -Kieran A. Carroll ...decvax!utzoo!kcarroll ------------------------------ Date: 10 May 84 0:06:56-PDT (Thu) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: harpo!ulysses!allegra!mouton!karn @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: Fuses in Solar Max Fuses are common practice in spacecraft. Normally, they are sized such that only a catastrophic failure of the associated subsystem will blow the fuse. This prevents a failure of a (possibly replicated) subsystem from dragging down the common power supply bus and possibly losing the entire spacecraft. Subsystems which could reasonably be expected to draw occasional overloads are indeed often protected instead with resettable (by command or by timer) "circuit breakers". But there are still many failure points in a spacecraft which are hard to protect against without total redundancy of each and every subsystem, which is often just not practical. You also have to weigh the (normally high) reliability of fuses against more complex (and hence more likely to be unreliable) auto-resetting circuit breakers. Phil ------------------------------ Date: 12 May 84 16:33:27-PDT (Sat) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: harpo!ulysses!allegra!mouton!karn @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Westar 6 AKM fired The apogee kick motor on Westar 6 was fired today to circularize its orbit at 600 miles in order to keep it in orbit long enough for a possible rescue mission. If it is to be repaired, it will have to be brought down to a 300 mile repair orbit with maneuvering thrusters. Phil ------------------------------ Date: 12 May 84 18:32:45-PDT (Sat) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: ihnp4!oddjob!matt @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: big bangs / ultimate problems (Monopoles) Yes, monopoles would catalyze baryon decay, giving about 100 times the efficiency of fusion, but to get a usable rate of interaction you would need to compress your fuel to the density of a white dwarf or thereabouts! Keep thinking though. If we don't solve the energy problem pretty soon we will have to go back to brushing our teeth by hand. :^} ___________________________________________________ Matt ARPA: crawford@anl-mcs.arpa Crawford UUCP: ihnp4!oddjob!matt ------------------------------ Date: 12 May 84 20:01:00-PDT (Sat) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: harpo!ulysses!allegra!alice!alb @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Westar 6 Orbit Stabilized Ground controllers today fired Westar 6's on-board rocket and brought the satellite into a circular, 600 mile high orbit. Before the operation, the satellite, in a 150 by 500 mile orbit, was in danger of falling into the atmosphere. Today's maneuver preserved the satellite for a possible future rescue attempt. NASA is conducting negotiations with Western Union about such an attempt being made in November. Palapa B, in a similar 150 by 500 mile orbit, would also have to be raised soon to protect it. If the satellites are to be rescued, they would have to be brought back down into the shuttle's range, about 300 miles. ------------------------------ Date: 13 May 84 7:31:53-PDT (Sun) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: harpo!ulysses!allegra!alice!alb @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Discovery Moved to VAB The space shuttle Discovery was moved to the VAB yesterday, following work in the OPF. After it is mated to its external tank and SRB's, the Discovery will be moved to the launch pad next week. On 1 June, its three main engines will be test fired, and on 21 June, it will be launched on the 7-day 41-D mission. Its crew will include America's second woman in space. ------------------------------ Date: 13 May 84 9:51:32-PDT (Sun) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: harpo!ulysses!allegra!mouton!karn @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: transponder? scramjet? Since the Apollo days, NASA manned spacecraft have used something called the "Unified S-Band Tracking and Telemetry System". This is a coherent two-way transponder system in which the ground tracking station sends up a phase-modulated carrier on 2106.4063 mhz. The shuttle carries a phase-locked-loop synthesizer which multiplies the received carrier frequency by 240/221 and transmits the resulting 2287.5 mhz signal. The ground can now lock onto this carrier and regenerate its original uplink frequency, which will of course be doppler shifted. In fact, if the system stays locked, the ground can count individual wave fronts as the shuttle moves, much like a police radar (but much more reliable). The phase modulation on both the uplink and the downlink can go on simultaneously with the doppler measurement, but it can also contain pseudo-random data sequences to provide range information as well as velocity. Take these numbers and put them into a least-squares nonlinear curve fitting program with an orbit model, and you get the shuttle's orbital elements. Phil ------------------------------ Date: 13 May 84 1:29:29-PDT (Sun) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: ihnp4!zehntel!zinfandel!berry @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: NASA spinoffs Anyone who wants to know about NASA's contribution to general technology should subscribe to "NASA Tech Briefs", a quarterly put out for the specific purpose of diseminating NASA technical innovations. My copy of the "Summer 1983" issue arrived a weel or so ago, and includes myriad ideas and inventions available under varying degrees of licensing -- all non-exclusive, if any. (I think the 1983 is a misprint) Topics include: Electronic force gauge for welders; Improved o2/h2 gas mixture sensor; High power (400A 1200V) transistors; Normal incidence X-ray mirror; A compact skin-friction gauge for wind tunnels; NRZ Data asymmetry corrector and convolutional encoder; Self modulated Laser rangefinder; Transducer joint for kidney-stone ultrasonics; ANd many more Surely anyone can find something useful in one of these volumes. Also included are listings of new books and available computer programs; I sent off for info ona set of VAX/VMS security programs for a friend who manages a multi-VAX VMS installation. Subscribe by sending the following information to Manager, Technology Transfer Division P.O. Box 8757 Baltimore/Washington Int'l Airport, MD 21240 1.Name 2.Title 3.Company 4.M/S Code Phone 5.Street 6.City State Zip -----FOR HOME DELIVERY------ Street City State Zip (Home delivery is possible only if items 1-6 are completed) I have 4 cards left in my copy, and will fill them out for anyone who mails me complete information specified above; omit home address if you want delivery at work. Subscription is free. Berry Kercheval Zehntel Inc. (ihnp4!zehntel!zinfandel!berry) (zehntel!berry@BERKELEY, I think) (415)932-6900 ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 15 May 84 05:12 EDT From: dmrussell.pa@XEROX.ARPA Subject: Re: SPACE Digest V4 #191 To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC.ARPA Would someone define "scramjet" as opposed to "ramjet"? (I know ramjet, just not the other...) ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 16-May-84 0302 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #193 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 193 Today's Topics: Magnetic Monopoles ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 15 May 84 08:13 PDT (Tuesday) From: DBraunstein.ES@XEROX.ARPA Subject: Magnetic Monopoles Re: SPACE Digest V4 #192 To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC.ARPA cc: DBraunstein.ES@XEROX.ARPA " If we could find and capture a few monopoles, they'd make a greatpower source, better even than fusion promises...." Good idea if we could capture a few monopoles, but we have yet to confirm the existence of the monopole. Blas Cabrera at Stanford has measured one isolated 'event' using a superconducting SQUID detector on Feb. 14,1982, but recorded no others since then, leaving open the possibility of either a very low monopole flux, or an equipment malfunction. Anyways, in addition to monopoles being far and few between, they are also very massive, ~1.0e16GeV, or about the mass of an amoeba, and very small, ~1/100th radius of the electron,(1.0e-15cm?). Any monopole travelling through space with a collison course with earth, would pass right through the earth with little perturbation along the way, so good luck in catchingm one. For more (accurate) information on monopoles, read the May or April issue of Physics Today. Also there was a Scientific American article in ~spring 1981-82 on monopoles. David Braunstein Xorex, El Segundo ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 17-May-84 0302 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #194 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 194 Today's Topics: Re: Partial eclipse coming on May 30th ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 14 May 84 18:41:42-PDT (Mon) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: ihnp4!houxm!hogpc!pegasus!gsw @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: Partial eclipse coming on May 30th A safe and cheap way to observe the eclipse is to use welder's glass of the proper shade. Here is a quote from Sky and Telescope, November, 1983, p403: "One safe way to look at Sun is to hold a rectangular welder's glass of the proper shade in front of the eyes. In a major study of radiation hazards to the eye in `Applied Optics', January, 1973, pages 1-33, D. H. Sliney and B. C. Freasier noted that a shade density of AT LEAST No. 13 (visual transmission 1 part in 130,000) is required for viewing the Sun. Shade No. 14, the densest made, provides glarefree viewing comfort during the partial phases, even when the Sun is high in a clear sky. But for the details of the beads of sunlight at the limb during annularity a No 13 shade may be preferred." I bought a No. 13 and a No. 14 shade a few weeks ago. They cost me about $1.40 each from S.O.S. Gases in Middlesex, New Jersey. Most welding suppliers stock welder's glass, though only two of the four I tried stocked the shades necessary for viewing the Sun. The glass comes in two sizes the smaller of which is sufficient for viewing with both eyes at once. They measure 2" by 4 1/4". WARNING: If you prefer to use over-exposed negatives as suggested in the A.P. article (and I don't) DO NOT use color negatives as they are transparent to infra-red. Observing the "Diamond Necklace" -------------------------------- The A.P. article says: > Because of their positions in the sky, the moon appears to be a tiny > bit smaller than the sun when it moves in front. If the moon's > surface were smooth, a simple ring of light would then form at the > heigt of the eclipse. > But instead, the moon has mountains and valleys. And in the seconds > just before the maximum eclipse, light shining between the peaks > gives the appearance of bright beads around the moon, a ''diamond > necklace in the sky,'' as some have described it. > But the best place to view it will be in the Southeast, along a path > from just north of New Orleans to just south of Richmond, Va. Indeed, > Ms. Cleere noted that Interstate 85 nearly parallels the path of the > eclipse for more than 600 miles from Georgia to Virginia. > Along that line the eclipse will be nearly total, with 99.8 percent > of the sun covered by the moon. Across the rest of the United States > and Mexico, a partial eclipse will be visible - with less of the sun > blocked out farther from the line. In order to see the "diamond necklace" you must be somewhere on the path described above. This path is 6 miles wide when it arrives on the Louisiana coast line at 12:02 CDT and is only *3* miles wide when it leaves the Viginia coast at 12:49 EDT. If you are intend travelling to view this phenomenon, known as an annular eclipse, you will need to know exactly where to go. It is probably too late to write but the U.S. Naval Observatory will supply (for free) a set of maps and reams of data for this eclipse by asking for Circular 166 at the U.S. Naval Observatory, Washington, D.C. 20390. Alternatively you can telephone me during the evening on (201)671-7780. I will photocopy the maps you require and mail them the following day (also for free, fool that I am.) Finally, meteorologists for the Observatory estimate that there is only about one chance in three that the sky would be clear enough along most of the path of annularity, though this can be significantly improved if you are mobile. I will be standing where Route 1 crosses Interstate 85 about 6 miles west of Petersburg, Virginia. See you there? Gordon Watson, AT&T Information Systems, Lincroft, New Jersey. ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 18-May-84 0302 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #195 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 195 Today's Topics: New computers for shuttles ?? Re: Space station?? How about other things too/first? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 14 May 84 7:42:01-PDT (Mon) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: hplabs!hao!seismo!cmcl2!floyd!clyde!akgua!mcnc!duke!ucf-cs!giles @ Ucb-Vax Subject: New computers for shuttles ?? (c) 1984 The Orlando Sentinel ----------------------------- Space shuttle may fly on new computers in '86 by James Fisher of the Sentinel Staff -------------------------------------------- KENNEDY SPACE CENTER -- Frustrated by the limitations of the space shuttle's computers, NASA is planning to replace the 1960s-era system in 1986 with faster units that can store more information. The memories of the five computers on each shuttle orbiter are "100 percent full" during launch, preventing technicians from adding any new launch- related information before a mission unless they remove some existing data, computer managers said. That process is inefficient, time-consuming and costly but will have to continue until replacement computers are installed, said John Garman, former deputy chief of the spacecraft software Division at Johnson Space Center in Houston. The five computers usually have more than enough memory when the shuttle is in orbit because they can tap into two separate mass-memory units. However, there is no access to these units during critical launch and re-entry activities, limiting the computers to their individual smaller memories. "Yeah, of course it's a problem," Garman said. The computer crunch doesn't endanger the flights, he said, but "it just hurts, that's all." Since the design of the computers began in the late 1960s, computer technology has expanded rapidly. But the shuttle's computers weren't upgraded because changes would have affected other systems being developed and tested, NASA officials said. Planners wanted to get the shuttle operating smoothly before modernizing individual systems such as the computers, said Dan Marlowe, a shuttle avionics engineer in Houston. Although technicians were able to expand the memories once during shuttle construction, the capacity problem has plagued programmers since the first flight little more than three years ago. With each mission, NASA "keeps adding and modifying and doing things," Garman said. As launch sequence data is added, "we have scrubbed and cut down" on existing data. "I don't think there's ever been a critical point. It just costs more money," he said. "It'll make it a lot more cheaper when we don't have to keep pulling good stuff out to replace it with better stuff." Replacing data in the computers is time consuming because technicians have to run a series of checks to make sure the changes haven't disrupted other instructions in the memory, Marlowe said. Each of the modified IBM general purpose computers weighs 104 pounds and is in two metal boxes that measure 7-1/2 by 10 by 20 inches. They are in the front middeck crew compartment. Four computers operate simultaneously, and any one can run the shuttle. The fifth is a backup if all the others fail. Each computer has about 106,500 words of memory. The two mass-memory units that aid the computers store up to 34 million bytes of information. A byte is comparable to a word in computer language. Data in the computers instruct them to monitor all the shuttle's systems, gather information, find problems, control communications and provide guidance, navigation, and control for launch, re-entry, and landing. The launch sequence puts the most stress on the computer memories because of the amount of information and because the mass-memory units aren't accessible, Garman said. Along with instructions for ascent, the computers have to keep handy the means for the shuttle to re-enter the Earth's atmosphere in case of trouble and land at one of several sites. NASA officials said they are discussing computer improvements with Rockwell International and IBM, but no contracts have been awarded. Officials with the space agency and both companies would not speculate on how much new computers would cost. Plans call for each replacement computer to be combined into one box. The memory would be expanded to accomodate 256,000 words and could issue instructions to the computer four times faster. The mass-memory storage units would still be used. Installation probably would be done in phases, one orbiter at a time, starting in 1986, Marlowe said. NASA has three orbiters -- the Nina, the Pita, and the Santa Maria. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- That last bit was to see if anyone was still awake. The original article correctly identified the orbiters as Columbia, Challenger, and Discovery. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- ave discordia going bump in the night ... bruce giles decvax!ucf-cs!giles university of central florida giles.ucf-cs@Rand-Relay orlando, florida 32816 ------------------------------ Date: 15 May 84 10:21:38-PDT (Tue) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: hplabs!hao!seismo!cmcl2!floyd!clyde!watmath!utzoo!kcarroll @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: Space station?? How about other things too/first? * Well, there will be "something up there" in the interim period, while the space station is being designed. There are free-flyer version of Spacelab, for example, which are designed to be left on orbit for a few months. There's the Long Duration Exposure Facility, ditto. There have been other proposals from the European Space Agency, if I remember aright, for unmanned stations on a small scale, that'd provide power/cooling/pointing/communications on a reusable basis, in the near future. -Kieran A. Carroll ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 19-May-84 0302 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #196 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 196 Today's Topics: New Computers for Shuttle ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 18 May 1984 07:18:06 EDT From: METH@USC-ISI Subject: New Computers for Shuttle To: SPACE@MIT-MC cc: METH@USC-ISI Parkinson's Law: Things expand to fill the available space. How long after the new computers are approved do you think the NEW memory will be full? ALL spacecraft experience the same problem. The Space Telescope's flight computer exceeded memory goals a few months ago! -Sheldon Meth The BDM Corporation ------- ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 20-May-84 0303 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #197 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 197 Today's Topics: Re: Orphaned Response - (nf) Re: Cost of the Shuttle - (nf) Call for Scientists Observing May 30th Eclipse ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 29 Apr 84 23:12:00-PDT (Sun) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: pur-ee!uiucdcs!smu!clardy @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: Orphaned Response - (nf) #R:sri-arpa:-1244000:smu:17700003:37777777600:200 smu!clardy Apr 29 03:12:00 1984 [sacrificial line, to imaginary bugs] Could someone out there who is able to attend the lecture please summarize it to the net, for those of us who do not (currently) live in California. Thanks. ------------------------------ Date: 9 May 84 9:32:00-PDT (Wed) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: pur-ee!uiucdcs!trsvax!cozadde @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: Cost of the Shuttle - (nf) #R:astrovax:-31600:trsvax:56000015:000:1822 trsvax!cozadde May 9 11:32:00 1984 To: Ed Turner astrovax I, too, think the manned space program was a waste of money, but only the part between the X-20 Dyna-soar and the space shuttle. The entire part of the manned space program that includes the Mercury project through the Apollo project was a publicity stunt dreamed up by the Kennedy admin. If the X-20 had been completed and the space shuttle (which uses mostly 1965-1970 technology) had been started on time, the space scientist types would be complaining about not getting enough money for their 1000 kilometer base-line radio tele- scope in Lunar orbit or their 10,000 inch optical telescope in Lagrangen-4 or 5 orbit. So, the manned space program lost between 10 to 20 years (more than half of a hopeful astronaut's career) to a publicity stunt. Maybe if we worked together, we can make up for some lost time. Instead, it seems the 'space' scientists would rather sit at the bottom of a 100 mile well of dirty air that is getting more polluted by the day. I have heard the IRAS unmanned telescope was able to produce more infor- mation in 1 day than an earth bound telescope could produce in a year. What kind of productivity would a manned IRAS type tele- scope in Lunar orbit have in contrast to an unmanned IRAS in LEO. In conclusion, there is a saying that has a collolary: In your life some rain must fall, but it might wash the dust from your eyes and your mouth if used properly. If the 'space' scientists would get behind and push for the manned space program instead of throwing rocks all the time, the benefits they may receive could be greater than they could ever hope for by clinging to the dust of the earth. lt. of marines David E. Cozad Chairman DFW SpacePac ...microsoft!trsvax!cozadde ...ctvax!trsvax!cozadde ------------------------------ Date: 9 May 84 9:24:31-PDT (Wed) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: hplabs!tektronix!uw-beaver!ssc-vax!marla @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Call for Scientists * I am posting the following at a request from Dale Amon of the L5 society. It was origionally posted on the ARPA space-BB. Replies may be made through me at ssc-vax!marla or directly to Dale at AMON@CMU-RI-FAS.ARPA. ************************************************************************** This afternoon at 1:45 a press conference was held by Congressman Greene, who is on the House Appropriations Committee. He recently did an informal survey of universities and claims he could find no scientists supporting a manned space station. He would like to see a strictly robotic station. A number of us at L5 have been working around the clock to generate an organization to be called 'Scientists for a Manned Space Station' or something along those lines. It will essentially be a list of names. Our retaliation has two parts. A member of the White House Science Office is at the above mentioned conference, and will proceed to name some important scientists who back a manned station. This neutralizes the initial press coverage. About a week from now, Dr. Sheffield or Dr. Jastrow will hold a press conference to expand on the stand that many scientists ARE for a manned space station. I would like you to collect the following information from as many individuals who are working scientists as you can find: 1) Name 2) Title: Mgr of whatzits 3) affiliation: Univ of North Podunk 4) phone number 5) address The more names and the more influential the names, the better. But be selective. We do not want to warn our opposition! Get friends to ask their friends, and so forth. Collect as many names as quickly as you can! These individuals will have to do nothing more than agree that the space station should be a reasonable mix of robotics and humans. If you have a really big name, contact Joe Hopkins in Seattle, 206-773-7984 (Gordon Woodcock's office) 206-821-3303 (home) and tell him I referred you. Pass this message along to interested friends so they can widen this to include their friends as well. For our purposes, a scientist is anyone making their living primarily from research, regardless of whether they are a Phd. Ad Astra, Dale Amon amon@cmu-ri-fas.ARPA ************************************************************************ Marla S. Baer ssc-vax!marla ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 19 May 84 20:24 EST From: Charles Weems To: space@mit-mc.arpa Subject: Observing May 30th Eclipse It should always be stressed that one should NEVER look directly at the sun. Only a short period is required for permanent damage to the eye to take place. If observing the sun through a telescope, this is even more important as only a brief glance will cause irreversible damage. Even when looking at the sun through dark filters, one must be careful that the filter eliminates the infrared end of the spectrum. This is often NOT the case. The darkest welders glass will do this as will a totally blackened black and white negative. One must be careful with the latter however. The reason a B&W negative works is due to its silver content -- and it must be really totally black (believe me, the sun is plenty bright to be seen even through this). Some newer B&W films are also going to switch to a die based emulsion (to save silver cost) -- these will be unsafe even when fully blackened. The filter of choice for solar observation is a metal coated film or glass, which eliminates the infrared. The best kind is Inconel coated optical glass (because it gives a nice yellow color to the image). These are now in short supply (due a run on them for the eclipse). The next best is aluminized mylar. This is available from graphics supply stores in about 3' wide rolls, sold by the foot. Try to get the stuff that is aluminized on both sides and that is very thin. If it is only available in singly aluminized, you can double it over but it won't be quite as clear. Try to get a piece with as few scratches as possible. If you can't find it in rolls, the aluminized mylar baloons that are often available from party supply places and florists can be cut up and used as well. Hold it over your eyes (or glasses) so that you block out the reflections from backlighting and you will get a good view of the sun (with blue coloration). For those with telescopes, it is recommended that you use only a objective covering filter (again, mylar or glass, metal coated). Both refractors and cassegrains can be damaged by the heat from direct sunlight. An objective filter prevents this entirely. For newtonian reflectors, projection onto a white screen can be done, but the heat of the focussed solar image can damage an eyepiece. DO NOT use the little dark eyepiece filters that are supplied with many cheap telescopes (labelled "solar filter"). These are frequently subject to shattering due to expansion from heat. Some better refractors (those costing in the range of $1200 to $6000) come equipped with a solar prism, filter and aperture reducer: These can be used safely if all directions are followed. For indirect observation, you can make a pinhole in a piece of cardboard and hold it so that an image from it falls on a white sheet of card stock behind it. If you want to be more elaborate, use a cardboard box and replace the back side with frosted drafting acetate to for a rear projection type viewer. It is recommended that you test the apparatus you choose on a sunny day sometime before the eclipse, so you'll have time to make adjustments before the real thing. chip (Former telescope salesman from Oregon -- where everyone's frightened of the sun 'cause we don't see it but twice a year.) ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 21-May-84 0303 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #198 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 198 Today's Topics: re: Russian Space Program Re: Russian Space Program ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 18 May 84 12:40:51-PDT (Fri) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: hplabs!sdcrdcf!sdcsvax!sdccs6!ix241 @ Ucb-Vax Subject: re: Russian Space Program line-eater If this is a repeat posting, my apologies. >The Russians have *NEVER* returned soil samples from the moon. >Yes, I did read the note that said they did, but whoever wrote it >was either misinformed or simply ignorant. Sorry, that is misinformation. The soviets returned at least two small (kilogram size range) samples from the moon. This is a very small fraction of what the Apollo program returned but valuable because they are from other places on the moon. What was cute and normally political for the soviet government was how our lunar scientists got a sample so we could work with it. NASA and the NSF(I think) offered several grams of lunar soil from a couple of Apollo missions in exchange for roughly 200-300 milligrams of Lunokod sample. The US side thought this was fair because we knew and the relevant soviet scientists knew that it would take larger samples for the soviets to get a comparable amount of information to what the US would get from 100 milligrams or less. The soviet government would have none of that. "The Americans are not better!!! We give the same as we get." So we got a couple of grams of theirs and they got a couple of grams of ours. I refer you all to James Oberg's Red Star in Orbit. If you think Kennedy was grandstanding with Apollo, you don't know what grandstanding really is. John Testa UCSD Chemistry sdcsvax!sdccs6!ix241 ------------------------------ Date: 25 May 84 0:39:41-EDT (Fri) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: ihnp4!drutx!houxe!hogpc!houti!ariel!vax135!ukc!dgd @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: Russian Space Program >The Russians have *NEVER* returned soil samples from the moon. >Yes, I did read the note that said they did, but whoever wrote it >was either misinformed or simply ignorant. > > smu!clardy Perhaps you know something the rest of us don't. I will give you a reference at the end of this message and then you may assess the last line of your message and judge exactly to whom it might conceivably apply. In 1970 a SOVIET unmanned lander ( LUNA-16) collected and returned to earth some lunar soil fines from the Mare Fecunditas. LUNA-20 landed near Appollinus C. Results have been published and the lunar material has been sent to laboratories around the world (including the lab here at ukc). In case you do not trust the Soviet literature, refer to NASA SP-370 1974 Part II ed.s J.H. Pomeroy and N.J. Hubbard Proceedings of The Soviet-American Conference on Cosmochemistry of the Moon and Planets. Held in Moscow June 4-8 1974. Published by NASA in 1977 With Best Wishes, dgd@ukc ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 22-May-84 0406 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #199 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 199 Today's Topics: NASA Transfers Delta Launches to Private Company usefulness of Apollo, etc. Re: Russian soil sample return Re: Soviet Moon Rocks ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 18 May 84 3:06:50-PDT (Fri) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: harpo!ulysses!allegra!alice!alb @ Ucb-Vax Subject: NASA Transfers Delta Launches to Private Company NASA yesterday transferred all Delta launch operations and services to the control of TCI. The private company will take over promoting, selling, and launching Delta rockets after NASA finishes its launch contracts, which run through October, 1985. TCI will pay NASA for the use of KSC launch facilities and tracking services. The Delta rocket has a 93.8% success rate, and its last 40 flights have been suc- cessful. Other companies are negotiating to take over Atlas-Centaur launches from NASA and Titan 3 launches from the Air Force. ------------------------------ Date: Monday, 21 May 1984 09:34:14 EDT From: Hank.Walker@cmu-cs-vlsi.arpa To: space@mit-mc.arpa Subject: usefulness of Apollo, etc. Message-ID: <1984.5.21.13.29.33.Hank.Walker@cmu-cs-vlsi.arpa> The statement that the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo programs were worthless has some very large holes in it. We lacked some important things like good computers, reusable engines, composites, etc needed to make a worthwhile shuttle. And the bugs still aren't worked out of the engines. All of those programs built a body of knowledge that was very useful to later programs. A simple example is space medicine. So don't say those programs were worthless. Those programs also got back lunar soil sooner than a fully reusable program would have. ------------------------------ Date: 21 May 1984 1233-PDT From: LEE at SU-STAR Subject: Re: Russian soil sample return Chronology of Soviet lunar soil sample-return missions: (From Space Technology,"chief author" Kenneth Gatland, Harmony Books, New York, 1981) NAME DATE COMMENTS Luna 4/15/69 Failed to reach Earth orbit Luna 6/12/69 Failed to reach Earth orbit Luna 15 7/13/69 Failed to achieve softh lunar landing Cosmos 300 9/23/69 Failed to leave Earth orbit Cosmos 305 10/22/69 Possible succesful trans-lunar injection only Luna 2/19/70 Failed to reach Earth orbit Luna 16 9/12/70 Succesful. On the moon for 26hr 30min. Extracted c.100gr of rock & soil to a depth of 13.8in. (35cm) from Sea of Fertility@0deg 41min S, 56deg 18min E. Luna 18 9/2/71 Crashed Sea of Fertility Luna 20 2/14/72 Succesful. Returned samples from thelunar highlands @3deg 32min N, 56deg 33min E, between the Seas of Fertility and Crises. Luna 23 10/28/74 Failed to return due to landing damage Luna 10/13/75 Failed to reach Earth orbit Luna 24 8/9/76 Succesful. Returned samples taken toa depth of 6.56ft (2m) from Sea of Crises @12deg 45minN, 62deg 12min E. Note: All of the above were estimated to mass c. 5.5metric tons. Emilio P. Calius Dept. of Aero & Astro Stanford U. ------------------------------ Date: 18 May 84 8:37:36-PDT (Fri) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: hplabs!hao!seismo!tiberio @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: Soviet Moon Rocks When I was a geology undergrad at U. Mass. (grad 1977), my advisor Dr Stephan Haggerty asked me to stay on as a grad student and do research on Soviet Moon rocks. Steve is a well known South Africian Mineralogist and had been looking at US moon rocks for some time. We used to get calls from the flat earth society and other organizations wanting to know if WE really went to the moon or if the money went to the CIA. It was a fun time. seismo!tiberio ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 23-May-84 0404 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #200 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 200 Today's Topics: Discovery Rolled to Pad Re: Trivia Question (diamond rockets) Up on the farm Soviet soil sample probes ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 20 May 84 9:29:25-PDT (Sun) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: harpo!ulysses!allegra!alice!alb @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Discovery Rolled to Pad The space shuttle Discovery, newest in the expanding fleet, was rolled to pad 39A yesterday. On 2 June, its main engines will be test fired, and on 21 June, it will list off on 41-D. ------------------------------ Date: 17 May 84 8:43:24-PDT (Thu) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: hplabs!tektronix!uw-beaver!ssc-vax!eder @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: Trivia Question (diamond rockets) 17 May 1984 Many solid rocket nozzles are made of a carbon-carbon composite, for example the Star-48 motor used on PAM-D's and the SRM-1 motor used on the IUS. These are made by forming a graphite-epoxy structure, then heating it until the epoxy chars, leaving carbon fibers reinforced by carbon particles. The composition of this nozzle is nearly 100% carbon, which is the same as diamond. The nozzles are used because they are strong for their weight at the extremely high temperatures they operate at. The nozzle throats (the narrowest part) DO erode during the motor operation, but it is hard to find anything that won't do that at those temperatures (6100 F for a Star-48). Dani Eder / Boeing Aerospace / ssc-vax!eder / (206)773-0570 ------------------------------ Date: 22 May 1984 12:28-EDT From: cu-arpa.dietz@Cornell.ARPA Subject: Up on the farm To: space@mit-mc Message-Id: <84/05/22 1228.410@Cornell> Photosynthesis is very inefficient in converting light to usable chemical energy (efficiency ~ 1%). One problem is the thermal nature of sunlight. Much of the energy arrives at wavelengths where chlorophyll absorbs inefficiently. The massive part of a space farm is likely to be the pressure vessel and soil in which the plants are grown -- reflectors for sunlight have low mass. Too much sunlight focused on the plants causes heat dissipation problems. One can differentially reflect different wavelengths of sunlight with plastic diffraction grating mirrors. Focusing only those wavelengths where chlorophyll absorbs efficiently could greatly increase crop yields, without too much waste heat frying the plants. Ultimately, one would want to breed plants of algae to efficiently absrob light in a narrow frequency range, then illuminate with a laser beam of that frequency. If the laser was chosen to radiate at a frequency where the human body was fairly transparent, perhaps the algae could be encouraged to grow in the human body, eliminating the need for breathing. So: how efficient is chlorophyll at various wavelengths? Has anyone ever tried growing algae by laser light? ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 22 May 84 15:13:58 pdt From: Ross Finlayson Subject: Soviet soil sample probes To: space@mit-mc Cc: rsf@Pescadero This is astonishing. I had not been aware of so many failed Soviet attempts, prior to the 3 successful missions. Does "Failed to reach Earth orbit" mean that the module containg the soil samples did not reach Earth orbit after liftoff from the moon, or that the initial liftoff from Earth was unsuccessful? In any case it's interesting to note that any of the first three attempts, had they been successful, would have preceded Apollo 11, and therefore would have upstaged it (to some degree). So it seems that the USSR hadn't totally conceded the 'race to the moon' after all. Ross. ps. I wonder how long we'll have to wait for soil samples from Mars (or even harder, Venus!)? A Mars soil sample return should be feasible with current technology, although not with current levels of funding. If only we could cooperate with the Soviet Union on projects like this.... (dream on) ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 24-May-84 0405 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #201 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 201 Today's Topics: Some word from NASA (long) Re: ssc-vax.139: Call for Scientists Up on the farm Re: is the American Space Foundation worthwhile? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 22 May 84 11:39:25-PDT (Tue) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: hplabs!hao!ames-lm!eugene @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Some word from NASA (long) (Somewhat long) Topics: Private space vectures Societies on Space Applying to NASA 1) NASA is not exactly set up to assist private space ventures. NASA is supposed to help spread information, but this runs a foul in several ways. NASA does work in the public domain, and many companies don't want to distribute their information for a competitive edge. This is a problem obviously for those companies. Information is there, you just have to sift for it. Also, NASA is not very good at PR. It suffers many of the same problems as other US Govt. agencies like HUD and the old HEW. I am aware of firms doing private space in Texas and locally in the Bay Area. In general: firms in areas with lots of money to begin with, an extension of model rocketry in some ways. The problem here is one of physics and mechanics: it is difficult and complex to actually get a satellite off the ground (maybe more difficult in some ways than assembling nuclear devices). I say this from working on SEASAT and VOYAGER. I am trying to release work on a TM and work on a recuriting brochure. Can't imagine the paperwork. 2) Space societies: the official NASA position is one of "beign negligent" (not my words). I am partial to the Planetary Society (Bruce Murray and Carl Sagan) and the Viking Fund. I know those who started the World Space Foundation. The problem is too little money being spread too thin (another NASA problem). Most NASA higher ups tend to disregard this groups because their "time is too precious." Yes, I guess I am a space nut and want to see space as a means of "speaking for Earth." I think on the whole these societies are something of a waste (don't mean to offend anybody). It to bad, too. All that energy. I like the idea of the Viking fund supporting existing data collection. The WSF's ideas of actually sending a solar sail into space, are neat too! Other societies spend too much for things too far into the future [it is important to have an imagination (something some NASA bureaucrats lack, to the surprise of some) this is the role of dreams such as those of Robert Goddard, but I really want to put something out there now!]. The militarization of space is something that worries me (and others). I only hope we are not too late. NASA is a civilian Agency, but I have met more and more former military types the farther I wander from the Center I started at. Not to fear, entirely. 3) Applying to NASA (Again). NASA desparately needs computer scientists and EEs. They are many obvious factors for this. Most critically, they need an infusion of new blood, people familiar with UNIX/C, distributed networks, interactive single user workstations and AI (many other things like VLSI, CAD, too). Our tendency is for advanced degrees. The best things to do: If you are in HS or undergrad. Learn as much as possible (and more). Finish your education and stay on top of what's happening in space. Write a resume (hardcopy as well as electronic). You need to go to an office of the US government and get a form 171. This is the standard form for US government jobs. Send this form and resume to a NASA Center which you are interested in. (Snail mail) You should have some idea what you are interested in. You need to be willing to relocate. This is a brief break down of where to send your resume. (Alphabetically) Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA 94035 in Silicon Valley. (also has the Dryden Flight Research Center) We do aerodynamic research, flight simulation, wind tunnels, we developed the infamous shuttle tiles (not the glue!), the 35 degree swept wing characteristic of most modern jets was developed here. The Rogallo hang glider was developed by one of our people in his spare time. The shuttle lands at our site of EAFB (Dryden). They just got a new Elxsi 6400. We run numerous UNIX systems as well as a Cray-XMP And we will be getting a Cray-2. There are tons of other work, (such as manned vehicle system research), but I should be brief. Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD just outside Washington DC. Oversees unmanned, near Earth missions such as weather, Landsats, etc. Oversees means the day to day mission operations, not what is done with the data. They have a Cyber 205 and a thing called the Massively Parallel Processor. (16,384 processors for image processing (8 per chip). I have a contact if you are willing to work on Amdahls and IBMs (A few VAXen runing VMS). They are considering UTS at this time. Mail me if you want his name and address. NASA HQ, Washington DC. Located right across the street from the Air and Space Museum. Coordinates more than researches. Not much to see if you should visit. If you send a resume here, what happens to it is up to question, but you can send a copy at least. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology. Pasadena, CA 91106. JPL has resisted a name dedication and is known by some as the Just Plain Laboratory. They are in charge of the Deep Space Network and most deep space missions: Voyager, Galileo, etc. They do some local earth stuff. They have probably one of the best computer graphics and image processing facilties in the world. JPL is a contact lab to NASA from Caltech. This has advantages: in CA, associated with one of the finest schools in the world (Caltech) which can give advanced ideas. It has problems, too. Smog, facilities problems. They recently came on the net. To apply here, don't send a 171. Send resume to the employment office or connections. Johnson Manned Space Center, Houston TX This the mission control for the Shuttle missions after liftoff. There are simulators, lots of training facilities. They have the Lunar Receiving Lab from the Apollo missions. They should on the net shortly via HP9000s. Kennedy Space Flight Center, FL This is where the shuttle takes off and lands. A large physical site, mostly for the preparation of launches, and very little to do after they get up into space (like Goddard, JPL). Marshall Space Flight Center Huntsville AL. This is where testing of materials, and systems for manned space goes on. I have not visited, but you might note that many of these NASA sites are located in the Deep South (cheap land and other reasons). Wallops Island, VA Another smaller launch site like Kennedy. No center name. A facility in the area near Santa Barbara, CA to be associated with Vandenberg AFB for polar launches. Not clear if it will be an office, or what. Manned space station. It is planned that a permanently manned space station will be the next major NASA Center. Each of these of fair too brief. I am willing to relay (for net inhabitants) those resumes to the appropriate area of interest, or establish a dialog, if interested. I did this once before, and I got three or four responses from the entire net (including ARPA). [Is that a lot of interest in space?] Alternative: You can work for a NASA contractor. They are many: Rockwell, McDon-Doug, even AT&T. Apply to them, ask around. Technicolor Graphics (EROS data center), Informatics, Intermetrics, SDC, lots of companies. Be careful! You might not be working with space. The problem is you will not be able to work into policy making areas easily. (Second man on the totem pole. Last hired, first laid-off). There are also smaller specialized contractors such as our newly formed Research Institute for Advanced Computer Science (RIACS, ames-lm!riacs!rac ) or ICASE. You should have an advanced degree. Director is Peter Denning. ICASE's path is uvacs!icase!%s. There are other things like the Goddard Space Institute. Special regard for summer hires: it too late for this year! I will post something on the net in Nov/Dec time frame. You should apply around Jan1/15 Anybody who's been to a University knows that anything can be done with a signatures, so, if you are still looking Something might still be possible. --eugene miya (Better than working on bombs) NASA Ames Reseach Center {hplabs,hao,research,dual}!ames-lm!statvax!eugene (UUCP) emiya@ames-vmsb (ARPA) Smail: MS 233-14 NASA Ames Research Center Moffett Field, CA 94035 Phone: (hard to reach me) (415)-965-6453 (Messages) (415)-965-5197 If you are getting a CS/EE PhD, stop by! I will give you a personal tour of the facility. We frequently post our computer science seminar to the local Bay Area net. Watch for us. ------------------------------ Date: 21 May 84 21:31:43-PDT (Mon) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: decvax!mcnc!duke!phs!jtb @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: ssc-vax.139: Call for Scientists I hate to use news for this but mail seems to bounce back. To: Dale Amon c/o Marla S. Baer Consider me a member of Scientists for a Maned Space Station From: Jose Torre-Bueno American Innovation inc. Box 151108 San Diego CA 92115 (619) 583-8009 Ph. D. Rockefeller U. 1975 (above adress valid as of June 6) ------------------------------ Date: 24 May 1984 05:23-EDT From: Robert Elton Maas Subject: Up on the farm To: cu-arpa.dietz @ CORNELL cc: SPACE @ MIT-MC Using laser light to grow crops means you have to first convert sunlight to electricity then run lasers, with loss of efficiency and cost of all that equipment. Your idea of diffraction grating to selectively reflect desired wavelengths of sunlight sounds like a better idea but why not just use multi-layer thin-film mirrors? The principle of enhancement of wavefronts is the same as diffraction grating, but you can reflect just the wavelengths you want whereas a diffraction grating reflects all wavelengths in different directions. This would reduce the light pressure (a la solar sailing) on the mirror, and thus reduce the need for support for the mirror. It would also avoid other wavelengths focusing in other places near or in the greenhouse where they might do harm. It would also allow a second mirror behind the selctive mirror to collect the rest of the sunlight for other less wavelength-selective purposes such as heating something to generate electricity by turbine or thermocouple etc. ------------------------------ Date: 21 May 84 9:24:48-PDT (Mon) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: hplabs!tektronix!uw-beaver!ssc-vax!eder @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: is the American Space Foundation worthwhile? [non-violent bug-catcher] 21 May 1984 I received a similar mailing about a year ago, when they were just getting started. Since I have been involved with space activism for years and had never heard of the ASF, I gave them a call and talked to someone in thier office for a while. They started in November of 1982. Their membership has been gotten almost entirely from mass mailings such as you and I recieved. Astronauts have lent their names to the mailings but are not directly involved in the operation. The organization says they intend to be lobbyists for space in Washington, D.C. Other space organizations have different aims. The L-5 Society promotes space development of all kinds, is non-profit, and works by educating the public. The Planetary Society supports research and exploration of the Solar System, and uses soe of its money directly for funding research. Dani Eder / Boeing Aerospace Company / ssc-vax!eder ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 25-May-84 0405 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #202 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 202 Today's Topics: American Space Foundation ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 24 May 1984 21:48:22-EDT From: Hank.Walker at CMU-CS-VLSI Subject: American Space Foundation I've been a member since 1982. They are strictly a Space PAC and spend their time lobbying Congressmen, giving them money, holding receptions, etc. Various Congressmen such as Newt Gringrich are associated with it. ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 26-May-84 0403 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #203 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 203 Today's Topics: Russian probes "failed to reach Earth orbit" Presidential candidates and space Could the Galileo probe contaminate Jupiter? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 25 May 84 11:50 EDT From: Chris Jones Subject: Russian probes "failed to reach Earth orbit" To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC.ARPA Message-ID: <840525155033.819224@MIT-MULTICS.ARPA> These all refer to failures to achieve earth orbit after launch from earth. If you think about it, it's pretty pointless carry the fuel necessary to decelarate the probe from ~ 25000 mph to 18000 mph from the earth to the moon, then back to earth orbit (especially since you'd need still more fuel to kick it out of earth orbit for recovery). ------------------------------ Date: Friday, 25 May 1984 13:11:28 EDT From: David.Smith@cmu-cs-ius.arpa To: space@mit-mc.arpa Subject: Presidential candidates and space Message-ID: <1984.5.25.16.47.25.David.Smith@cmu-cs-ius.arpa> [The following is excerpted from "What presidential election could mean for aerospace," an article in the May 1984 Aerospace America. I have omitted the introductory paragraph and the military positions.] Mondale could claim to have been the Space Shuttle's number-one enemy in the Senate, having led the fight to kill the program not once but three times from his post on the space subcommittee. Along with other liberal senators such as William Proxmire, he routinely voted against space budgets. In the spring of 1970 it was Mondale who led the Senate opposition to the Shuttle, coming within four votes of killing its authorization on the Senate floor. Intense efforts by other space-subcommittee members defeated his effort, but Mondale did not give up. The program still faced two appropriations votes, and Mondale again offered his Shuttle-killing amendments, but with less success. He dropped the fight only after the program was well underway, in part, some believed, because of the growing support for the Shuttle by organized labor, one of his major constituencies. Although all this occurred over a decade ago, Mondale's critics remember that in opposing the Shuttle he was opposing "The Space Shuttle/Space Station" program, as it was called then, and his feelings toward the space station have not mellowed. Campaign staffers say he feels that NASA "has not done its homework" with respect to what a space station would actually do and how much it would cost, and he could not favor it until the proposal has been "well thought out." He also fears that such a program would, like the Shuttle, draw funds away from space science programs, which he strongly supports. Gary Hart represents a largely unknown quantity for aerospace, even to his Senate staff, who say that his position is only now being formulated. In 1980 Hart led a move in the Armed Services Committee to zero funding for the Vandenburg Space Shuttle facility. As chairman of the subcommittee on military construction, Hart had obtained enough proxy votes from absent members to pass his amendment in the subcommittee's "mark-up," with the full committee scheduled to vote the next day. Last-minute scrambling behind the scenes by committee staffers led the late Senator Howard Cannon to oppose Hart and defeat his amendment. Hart was denied even a face-saving token cut. Then, in FY81, in a battle on the Senate floor to slice 2% across the board in the HUD-Independent Agencies' budget, which includes NASA's funding, Hart supported the cut and an amendment paring NASA's R&D funding in the same year. On the plus side, aerospace manufacturers in Hart's home state recall strong expressions of support from the Senator for programs such as Skylab and Viking. Reagan's space-station initiative has become the biggest star on the space horizon, and it is not the only bright one. This year's proposed NASA budget includes funding for a Mars Geoscience Climatology Orbiter, an Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite, a Naval Remote Sensing Satellite, and a 13% real growth in aeronautics. The decline in NASA manpower will be halted for the first time in many years. Perhaps even more important, NASA Administrator James Beggs recently announced an agreement with the White House that grants NASA 1% real funding growth for the next five years. This demonstrates what Beggs calls Reagan's accptance of "the importance of NASA R&D to our national economic well-being." Total basic research has also fared well under Reagan, having risen 55% (before inflation) since he took office. "In the same period," Science Advisor George Keyworth announced recently, "we've drastically reduced funds for the kinds of demonstration projects that industry can pursue better as well as for other non-defense development, at the same time ... bringing basic research from the smallest to the largest component of non-military R&D funding." Non-defense R&D has actually declined in real terms under Reagan, but defense R&D has ballooned by 107% over four years (before inflation). Reagan's strong support for defense spending is a surprise to no one, but his interest in space has been almost continually underestimated, despite statements to the contrary by Keyworth since the first days of his appointment. As a case in point, Reagan's space-station decision took much of the aerospace community by surprise (a statement by the National Coordinating Committee for Space praising the decision had to be drafted and endorsed in one day in order to be released in time for Reagan's speech). Perhaps most significant, Reagan is reported to have made his decision in the face of opposition from most of his top advisors. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 25 May 84 10:00:25 PDT From: Rich Wales Reply-to: wales@UCLA-LOCUS.ARPA To: SPACE@MIT-MC.ARPA Subject: Could the Galileo probe contaminate Jupiter? An article in the June 1984 issue of Astronomy magazine ("The Star Tar in the Jupiter Jars" by Linda Joan Strand) discusses the possibility that the "probe" portion of the upcoming Galileo mission to Jupiter might contaminate the Jovian atmosphere with terrestrial anaerobic bac- teria. According to the author, no appreciable steps have been taken during the construction of the probe to insure its sterility. Although it is a virtual certainty that the probe will burn up in the atmosphere during its descent, we cannot be 100% certain that some microorganisms might not escape, find the Jovian environment to their liking, and possibly mutate beyond recognition in a relatively short period of time. Such a happening would severely complicate -- and perhaps ruin entirely -- any subsequent attempts to search for indigenous Jovian microbes. Ms. Strand goes so far as to advocate outright cancellation of the Gali- leo probe (leaving only the orbiter part of the mission) unless adequate steps can be taken to sterilize it -- and, at this late stage, she sug- gests that a thorough sterilization of the probe is probably impossible. Comments? -- Rich ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 27-May-84 0403 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #204 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 204 Today's Topics: A Space Station Construction Set (NASA bigshots take note) Re: Russian soil sample return Jupiter probe ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 24 May 84 18:49:53-PDT (Thu) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: hplabs!ames-lm!jaw @ Ucb-Vax Subject: A Space Station Construction Set (NASA bigshots take note) # I'm the Urban Spaceman, baby, I can fly. I'm a supersonic guy. I'm the urban spaceman, baby, I've got speed. And everything you need. I'm the " " , baby, a lover second to none. It's a lot of fun. I don't need pleasure, I don't need pain. If you knock me down, I'll just get up again. I'm the urban spaceman, baby, here comes the twist-- I don't exist. -- Bonzo Dog Band, from 2nd LP "The Doughnut in Granny's Greenhouse" _____________ Well, space station designers, the little elves have already done your work for you! The company Hesware (HES) of Brisbane, California is announcing: Project Space Station: A Space Station Construction Set As reported in Infoworld of April 16, 1984 (p. 38), it is one of the more spectacular microcomputer "construction kits" (ala Pinball Construction Set) on the market. "The product is more a simulation than an arcade game ... in this case, an orbital space station that uses representations of available parts that NASA will be using in building its own space station." It runs on the Commodore 64 and the IBM PC, and is actually many construction sets in one. Continuing, Infoworld says: "Players have to create a budget and schedule for launching the station, then choose the equipment for the station from a catalog and add or move parts as necessary. They will also pick a use for the space station, select a crew, launch space shuttles into orbit and maneuver parts with the shuttle's remote manipulator arm or rocket pods and deal with such real-life problems as weather or unfavorable media coverage." (!) The developer for HES is Stan Kent of AstroSpace, a former Lockeed aerospace engineer. "Project Space Station also takes the player one step closer to the reality of working for the space agency. Players have to make a simulated trip to Washington, D.C., to resign as project director in order to quit the game. 'You can always turn it off, but that's the coward's way out,' Kent says. .... The [simulated] equipment is so accurate that it includes the PAM-D, the orbital transfer vehicle that failed to deliver its satellite payloads to the high orbits necessary for them to function during the last NASA shuttle flight." Sounds like NASA ought to hire this man. -- James A. Woods {dual,hplabs,hao,research}!ames-lm!jaw ------------------------------ Date: 26 May 1984 1244-PDT From: LEE at SU-STAR Subject: Re: Russian soil sample return To: SPACE%MIT-MC at SCORE Reply-To: LEE at SU-STAR The comment "failed to reach Earth orbit" in the chronology of Soviet lunar sample return missions I posted to the net a few days ago means that some- thing went wrong with the launch vehicle, e.g. the mission "crashed on takeoff" Emilio P. Calius Stanford U. ------ ------------------------------ Date: Saturday, 26 May 1984 14:17:32 EDT From: David.Smith@cmu-cs-ius.arpa To: space@mit-mc.arpa Subject: Jupiter probe Message-ID: <1984.5.26.17.45.45.David.Smith@cmu-cs-ius.arpa> ...the possibility that the "probe" portion of the upcoming Galileo mission to Jupiter might contaminate the Jovian atmosphere with terrestrial anaerobic bacteria. According to the author, no appreciable steps have been taken during the construction of the probe to insure its sterility. The early Ranger Moon probes were sterilized, and they kept failing. The later probes were not sterilized, and succeeded. The Apollo 12 astronauts walked over to one of the Surveyors and retrieved a biological sample. All microorganisms had perished since launch four years before. Although it is a virtual certainty that the probe will burn up in the atmosphere during its descent ... It's designed not to burn up, despite hitting the atmosphere at 58,000 mph and experiencing deceleration of hundreds of G's. The thing is mostly heat shield. It will deploy a parachute, which it will jettison when the atmosphere gets too thick to make a 'chute worthwhile. It will finally fail under the high pressure. ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 28-May-84 0403 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #205 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 205 Today's Topics: Made in Space Re: Congressman Green; text ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sunday, 27 May 1984 17:10:57 EDT From: Hans.Moravec@cmu-ri-rover.arpa To: space@mit-mc.arpa Subject: Made in Space Message-ID: <1984.5.27.21.9.8.Hans.Moravec@cmu-ri-rover.arpa> n068 1533 26 May 84 BC-SPACEGOODS First Space-Made Goods to Go on Sale This Year By JOHN NOBLE WILFORD c.1984 N.Y. Times News Service NEW YORK - The first commercial products to be made in space are to go on sale later this year. They are perfect plastic spheres, each exactly one one-hundred-thousandth of an inch in diameter, that were produced in weightlessness on a recent space shuttle flight and will be sold to laboratories for use in calibrating microscopes and other instruments. An engineer for a private company, McDonnell Douglas Corp., is set to fly on the next shuttle mission in late June to operate a machine that could lead to moneymaking drug-processing ventures in space. These are among the first tentative steps being taken by the government and American businesses to see if there is money to be made in space. More than 350 companies are exploring the prospects for manufacturing products that can be made only in weightlessness and for running private transportation services into space. In a broad-ranging discussion of the status of industry in space, experts Saturday described the opportunities in a spirit of long-term optimism tempered by short-term caution. The present could be a turning point because the space shuttle has provided the capability for doing business in space and the Reagan administration has begun to establish some of the regulations to govern commerce in space. At the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, engineers, financial experts and space agency officials advised would-be space entrepreneurs not to expect any immediate bonanza. Many of the 350 enterprises and others to follow would be destined to fail, it was agreed, because they would be unable to reap enough income to sustain them until some golden age of space industry finally does arrive. Philip E. Culbertson, an official of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, said the agency had ''high hopes'' for widespread orbital commerce in the next decade or so. But he noted, ''We cannot expect high benefits too rapidly.'' Culbertson, associate deputy administrator of NASA, said the agency plans to announce in a month or six weeks policy guidelines on what the government intends to do to facilitate private investment in space. Many companies have deferred major commitments on space ventures until NASA establishes clearer guidelines. President Reagan has instructed the agency to enhance commercial opportunities. In the guidelines, the space agency is expected to address the questions of tax incentives, research grants, legal protection of a private company's commercial secrets, the use of government radio frequencies for private purposes, deferral of some shuttle transportation costs and other inducements. Another issue to be resolved is whether to treat products of space industry as imports. Gerry Simonoff, a vice president of Citicorp Industrial Credit Co. in New York, said the challenge in financing private space ventures was to ''shrink the size of the initial investment'' so there would be less pressure to produce immediate revenues. Two ways to accomplish this, he said, were to design more modest equipment and to be prepared to go into debt for many years. Simonoff advised that small companies created as joint ventures by larger companies seemed to promise one of the safest routes for space entrepreneurs. Because of their connections with established companies they are more likely to attract outside investors or be better able to borrow. The most promising of the new businesses that are not joint ventures, he noted, tended to have some backing from major corporations that have signed contracts to buy services or to provide equipment. Although several small investor-owned companies or partnerships have been founded in recent years, Simonoff said space commerce remained too new and uncertain to spawn new enterprises on the scale of the electronics industry. - One such company, however, Astrotech International Corp., has asserted itself. The company's vice president for space operations, Willard F. Rockwell 3d, described plans to enter the space transportation business. The company, based in Pittsburgh, announced last week that it was forming a subsidiary to buy and operate a space shuttle. It would begin with borrowed money and might later raise capital with a stock offering. The subsidiary would be called Space Shuttle of America Corp. At the science association meeting yesterday Mr. Rockwell said Astrotech and NASA were ''working on terms and conditions which will lead to a purchase agreement'' for a space shuttle. NASA plans to build and operate four shuttles, though it has cited the eventual need for a larger fleet. So far the only profit-making operations in space are in telecommunications, now estimated to be a $10-billion-a-year business. Satellite communications demand is still growing by between 20 percent and 30 percent annually. As for other space commerce, participants at the meeting said, the prospects are more distant but nonetheless enticing. Peter E. Glaser, a vice president of Arthur D. Little Inc., the industrial consulting company, expressed the enthusiasts' viewpoint: ''No one today can accurately predict the global impact of the benefits of space commerce, except that we have a basic feeling that something important is happening in shaping the political and economic future of the world.'' nyt-05-26-84 1832edt *************** ------------------------------ Date: 25 May 84 14:04:15-PDT (Fri) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: pur-ee!CS-Mordred!Pucc-H.Physics.els @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: Congressman Green; text Such blinding logic!! I suppose that since most people don't need airplanes for their work, funding for air traffic control should be changed! I wonder just who he asked about the space station?? Certainly noone who wants to do REAL space science! ------------------------------------------------------------------------ | "Things always look | A message from the mental maze that darkest just before | calls itself: they go totally black!!" | | -- Col. Hannibal Smith | ERIC STROBEL | --------------------------------| UUCP: {decvax,ucbvax,harpo,allegra,inuxc,seismo,teklabs}!pur-ee!Physics:els INTERNET: els @ pur-phy.UUCP ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 29-May-84 0405 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #206 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 206 Today's Topics: Sterilization of space craft ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 28 May 84 15:00:20-PDT (Mon) To: space @ Mit-Mc From: hplabs!ames-lm!eugene @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Sterilization of space craft The Viking Landers which went to Mars were adequately sterilized. The Galileo probe will probably also be adequately sterilized, too. The environmental chambers where is this are located at JPL. The probes to Venus (pioneer) were also probably cleaned, too. This has to be done because like the case of Viking, instrumentation could be affected by non sterile equipment. Carl Sagan and others (in the early days of the lunar program) pointed out the need to avoid contamination of the worlds we visit in a series of papers which I don't have the references to. There are limits to the (and tests of these limits) procedures used, however, and probably some sci fi writer would make some interesting fiction based on a Star Trek II Genesis idea (modern bacteria is pretty sophisticated compared to early life forms). --eugene miya NASA Ames Res. Ctr. [Disclaimer: The above views do not state official policy or opinion of NASA and are those of the author.] ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 30-May-84 0402 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #207 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 207 Today's Topics: Galileo and Sterilization ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 29 May 84 08:21 PDT (Tuesday) From: DBraunstein.ES@XEROX.ARPA Subject: Galileo and Sterilization Re: SPACE Digest V4 #204 To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC.ARPA cc: DBraunstein.ES@XEROX.ARPA "The early Ranger Moon probes were sterilized, and they kept failing. The later probes were not sterilized, and succeeded. The Apollo 12 astronauts walked over to one of the Surveyors and retrieved a biological sample. All microorganisms had perished since launch four years before...." So what about the Viking landers, both were sterilized and were more than just sucessful, they performed beyond expectations. What are you trying to imply in comparing sterilized and non-sterilized craft? Hmmmmm?? Also I am positive that I read back in '69 or '70 and in a NASA report that dormant, but living organisms were found on parts taken from the Surveyor 3 lander. It is very hard to tell from the exerpt of the Astonomy article whether or not project Galileo should be held to the same guidelines as the Viking project, where the landers were required to be sterilized and the orbiters placed in a 50 year lifetime orbital lifetime, to avoid contamination of Mars. I am sure that those same considerations must have gone into project Galileo. Hmmmmmmmmm......... David Braunstein Xorex, El Segundo. ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 31-May-84 0404 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #208 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 208 Today's Topics: Re: Russian space program - (nf) Galileo and sterlilzation Drugs in space? Re: Shuttle Tiles Question re: candidates' views on space Soviet space accomplishments ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 23 May 84 11:29:12-PDT (Wed) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: hplabs!hao!seismo!cmcl2!floyd!clyde!watmath!utzoo!kcarroll @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: Re: Russian space program - (nf) In reply to "The Russians Have *NEVER* returned soil samples from the moon...whoever (said they did) was either misinformed or simply ignorant." Well, I was the one that said they did. I'm not sure if I'm misinformed; if so, then I was misinformed by a usually reliable source: to wit, "Jane's Pocket Book of Space Exploration", by T.M. Wilding-White, which I have open on the desk in front of me. The entry for the "USSR Luna Sample Collector" definitely claims that Luna 16 obtained a 3.5 oz. sample, and strongly indicates that this sample was returned to earth. I could type in the text for the entry, if you wish. Let me know. Now, why do you say the soviets definitely have not returned soil samples from the moon? I agree that the lunar surface isn't made up of soil, but of crushed lunar rock, with an admixture of micro-meteorites, solar particles, cosmic-ray particles, etc. Is this what you meant? -Kieran A. Carroll ...decvax!utzoo!kcarroll ------------------------------ Date: Wednesday, 30 May 1984 15:22:55 EDT From: David.Smith@cmu-cs-ius.arpa To: space@mit-mc.arpa Subject: Galileo and sterlilzation Message-ID: <1984.5.30.18.39.43.David.Smith@cmu-cs-ius.arpa> What are you trying to imply in comparing sterilized and non-sterilized craft? Hmmmmm?? Just two points. 1. That sterilization has been known to contribute to failure. 2. Microorganisms die in the space environment anyway. Also I am positive that I read back in '69 or '70 and in a NASA report that dormant, but living organisms were found on parts taken from the Surveyor 3 lander. Sorry, I must have gotten my information from such unreliable sources as National Geographic. Look, I'm not against sterilization, I'm playing devil's advocate. What are the tradeoffs in time, money, reliability, weight, and utility? If an absolutely sterile spacecraft malfunctions on the pad, what will it take to fix it and resterilize it? What does that do to the Shuttle backlog? Is it worth it? David Smith ------------------------------ Date: 30 May 84 2212 EDT (Wednesday) From: Vijay.Saraswat@CMU-CS-A.ARPA (C410VS90) To: space@MIT-MC.ARPA Subject: Drugs in space? Message-Id: <30May84.221259.VS90@CMU-CS-A.ARPA> What kinds of drugs are going to be manufactured in space? Or is that a trade secret? ------------------------------ Date: 28 May 84 10:15:18-PDT (Mon) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: hplabs!sdcrdcf!trwrb!scgvaxd!pertec!bytebug @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: Re: Shuttle Tiles Question > I got the sample at the first launch. Were they handing them out, or did you get one of the ones that fell off? ------------------------------ Date: 31 May 1984 0004-EDT From: John Redford To: space at MC cc: redford at SHORTY Subject: re: candidates' views on space Message-ID: <"MS10(2124)+GLXLIB1(1136)" 12019609022.12.583.6362 at DEC-MARLBORO> Re: the discussion of the various Presidential candidates' views on space: Be careful of Reagan's committment to space research. As the article mentioned but did not stress, all of this Administration's growth in research spending has been in defense. Spending on non-defense research has stayed flat (in real dollars). Money is being heaped on impractical ideas like laser ABMs and being cut from obviously valuable programs like photovoltaic research. The government is trying sell off its remote-sensing satellites. The Navstar global navigation system is being modified so that only the military can make good use of it. Since Reagan does not seem all that interested in non-defense work for its own sake, one has to wonder why he wants to spend so much money on the space station. I can think of two reasons. The first is as a propaganda vehicle. The Russians have had a station up there for years now. Until the Shuttle started working, America was seen as being behind in manned spaceflight. A space station would be another chance to wave the flag. This has been a reason for almost all of America's space efforts up to now, and it is probably still one. The other is to gain experience in large space construction projects. That will be needed for space-based missile defense. I think that space ABMs are a lot closer to Reagan's heart than better ball bearings. They would be to mine too, if I thought they would work. Space projects that were completely run by the military would probably run into heavy political opposition. This gives them a back door. Their people can live and work in a civilian station without cries in the UN about orbiting army bases. The best reason I see for a space station is to give people a chance to experiment for extended periods in the space environment. I'm sure that Reagan would hate to see some other nation take over the lead in space industrialization. So would all of us, including the Democrats. His fanaticism about his military build-up, though, leads me to wonder how much peaceful development of space he is willing to pay for. John Redford DEC-Hudson -------- ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 30 May 84 19:44:32 cdt From: Duncan A. Buell To: Space-Enthusiasts%mit-mc.arpa@csnet-relay.csnet Contrary to some predictions, the weather in south Louisiana was excellent for Eclipse Day, with cool temps and beautiful blue skies. The eclipse (I had a hard time convincing the local newspeople that "eclipse," unlike "police," "cement," "insurance," "July," and "Tulane," does not have the accent on the first syllable.) was the big story of the day at LSU. The Physics & Astr. department had a good tv setup in a packed lecture hall. Most of us simply wandered outside during the time in which someone substituted an energy-conserving lightbulb for the sun and watched the trees diffract the sunlight into little crescents. Eventually, of course, we did find a virgin and sacrifice her so the sun would come back--and it did. Yet another victory for modern science. A good eclipse was had by all. Duncan Buell Computer Science Department Louisiana State University ------------------------------ Date: 30 May 84 10:15:28-PDT (Wed) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: hplabs!ames-lm!eugene @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: Soviet space accomplishments I had to cancel a seminar by Richard Hamming for this, but I thought that it might be relavent to this net discussion. Next Tuesday, June 5, we are having a closed seminar analysing Soviet space technology and accomplishments. The seminar is closed to the public not for security reasons, but because of limited seating space (400 max). I will post a summary to the net before I l leave for Utah. The seminar is being given by a private consultant to the Agency as part of our Director's Speaker series. Other news: the pilots for the next Shuttle mission were seen here today practicing landings in our flight simulators and probably flying South to Dryden to practice landings on the lakebed. --eugene miya NASA Ames Research Center {hplabs,dual,hao,research}!ames-lm!statvax!eugene ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 01-Jun-84 0406 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #209 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 209 Today's Topics: Fish in Space Russian space program / picky definition of "soil"? "Astronomy" magazine ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu 31 May 84 13:44:38-EDT From: Andrew Braunstein Subject: Fish in Space To: space@MIT-MC.ARPA I am interested in learning if there have been any experiments with fish in space. I am particularly interested to know by what mechanism fish choose a "bottom". Also do we know what happens to embryonic fish. Joel Sohn National Marine Fisheries Service Woods Hole, Mass. reply via OA.ASB@MIT-XX.ARPA ------------------------------ Date: 31 May 1984 21:32-EDT From: Robert Elton Maas Subject: Russian space program / picky definition of "soil"? To: hplabs!hao!seismo!cmcl2!floyd!clyde!watmath!utzoo!kcarroll @ UCB-VAX cc: SPACE @ MIT-MC Hmm, "soil" according to the Doubleday Dictionary (1974) means "finely divided rock mixed with decayed vegetable or animal matter ..." I guess that means the Moon doesn't have "soil", technically. But then what would one call the moon's loose surface material? I think adjusting the meaning of "soil" to include material with no biologic content would be better than making up a new name for it. ------------------------------ Date: 31 May 1984 21:41-EDT From: Robert Elton Maas Subject: "Astronomy" magazine To: SPACE @ MIT-MC Current issue has (1) article on space station with lots of high-quality drawings of various propoed designs of station, (2) article/opinion about sterilization of Galileo probe an possible cancellation of the part that descends into the atmosphere. (I forgot to check which month, probably June, but might be May. Cover has a color photo of a rather pretty but disorganized spiral galaxy. Not as pretty as NGC2997 in Antlia, Sky&Telescope 1981.Sept p217, but similar and more colored.) While I'm on this silly subject of pretty galaxies, what is your favorite? NGC1232 is one of my runner-ups (cover Sky&Telescope 1983.Apr). ------------------------------ Date: 31 May 1984 21:58-EDT From: Robert Elton Maas To: buell%lsu.csnet @ CSNET-RELAY cc: SPACE-ENTHUSIASTS @ MIT-MC I was rather dissappointed in TV coverage of the eclipse. None of the regular networks had live coverage (except of the partial eclipse from Los Angeles). I had heard CNN was going to have live coverage, but I don't have cable. In desperation I scanned the whole UHF range, finally at the very end I noticed the Spanish-language station on channel 14 had live coverage from some place in Mexico ("Desoe Tunada, Jal" or somesuch). I watched intently, only to notice the very thin crescent had grown thicker; I had just missed the annular phase by a couple minutes, and they didn't replay the annular phase later, sigh. Oh well, at least I got to see it hours later on network news. (Note, some of the artwork beforehand, showing what causes an eclipse, was really bad, with the moon brighter than the sun in one simulation of what the eclipse would look like, and shadow of moon a cylinder about 5000 miles in diameter as it strikes the Earth in another simultion of what causes an annular eclipse.) ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 31 May 84 13:06:43 cdt From: Duncan A. Buell To: Space-Enthusiasts@mit-mc.arpa Contrary to some predictions, the weather in south Louisiana was excellent for Eclipse Day, with cool temps and beautiful blue skies. The eclipse (I had a hard time convincing the local newspeople that "eclipse," unlike "police," "cement," "insurance," "July," and "Tulane," does not have the accent on the first syllable.) was the big story of the day at LSU. The Physics & Astr. department had a good tv setup in a packed lecture hall. Most of us simply wandered outside during the time in which someone substituted an energy-conserving lightbulb for the sun and watched the trees turn the sunlight into little crescents. Eventually, of course, we did find a virgin and sacrifice her so the sun would come back--and it did. Yet another victory for modern science. A good eclipse was had by all. Duncan Buell Computer Science Department Louisiana State University P. S. My earlier message mentioned "diffraction" in regard to the images formed through the trees. This was the term used by the physicist next to me. I believed him. I am now told that the trees simply act like pinholes to produce the patterns. ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 02-Jun-84 0407 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #210 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 210 Today's Topics: Putting it all together Re: Fish in Space Re: Duncan Buell and Modern Ancient Practices Reversing of Magnetic Poles Re: SPACE Digest V4 #209 Eclipse report. AMSAT article in L-5 News Lets hear it for Private Enterprise Test Firing on Friday ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 1 Jun 84 07:25 EDT From: dmrussell.pa@XEROX.ARPA Subject: Putting it all together To: SPACE@MIT-MC.ARPA cc: dmrussell.pa@XEROX.ARPA Reply-To: DMRussell.PA@XEROX.ARPA Can someone point me to a reference(s) that describes how the Apollo program (or the space shuttle program) was managed? I've always been really curious about how such a truly massive, heavily interlocking system was designed, modeled, built, and debugged. It sounds like a truly hard problem that must have a clever answer. (Esp. considering the nature of NASA specs for every-little-piece in the system!) I'd like to know how they did it! -- Daniel M. Russell -- ------------------------------ Date: 1 Jun 1984 10:00-CDT Sender: SLONG@USC-ISIE Subject: Re: Fish in Space From: SAC.Long@USC-ISIE To: SPACE@MIT-MC Message-ID: <[USC-ISIE] 1-Jun-84 10:00:19.SLONG> Indeed an interesting idea, to study fish orientation. However, I foresee a problem to which, perhaps, someone may have a solution. In order for fish to survive, the water in which they reside must have a certain amount of oxygen, just as humans need a minimal amount of oxygen in our environment, be it the atmosphere, a space suit, or what have you. Bodies of water absorb a sufficient amount of oxygen from the atmosphere. Due to the small surface area of water exposed to the amosphere in aquariums, bubblers are required to supplement the diffusion of oxygen into the water. With a bubbler, the bubbles rise to the top due to differing densities. However, the direction in which the bubbles rise, and the fact that they rise, is also due to gravity -- the more dense substance rapidly displaces the less dense substance in a specific direction due to gravitation pull. In space, one could not use a bubbler effect to oxygenate the water. Where would bubbles go in a closed container with no gravity to cause displacement in a particular direction? They would merely move about within the water. I am sure some sort of pressure-controlled device could be designed providing a pressure differential so that the bubbles of oxygen would be displaced in the direction of the low pressure area. But this may introduce another variable into the experiment: what if fish are sensitive to pressure and use this as a means of orientation? (Is this worth pursuing further on this interest group? I am not the one to say. Comments please, if wothwhile.) -- Steve (SAC.Long@USC-ISIE) ------------------------------ Date: 1 Jun 1984 10:17-CDT Sender: SLONG@USC-ISIE Subject: Re: Duncan Buell and Modern Ancient Practices From: SLONG@USC-ISIE To: SPACE@MIT-MC Message-ID: <[USC-ISIE] 1-Jun-84 10:17:42.SLONG> A sad statement of our social condition, but where did you find a VIRGIN? ------------------------------ Date: 1 Jun 1984 10:35-CDT Sender: SLONG@USC-ISIE Subject: Reversing of Magnetic Poles From: Steve @USC-ISIE To: Physics@SRI-UNIX Cc: SPACE@MIT-MC Message-ID: <[USC-ISIE] 1-Jun-84 10:35:27.SLONG> I have heard rumor that in the year 2000 (+ or - a few years) the magnetic poles of the earth are going to do a flip-flop. Is this only a rumor or is there some truth to it? If it is true, is it going to be a gradual change of polarity or rapid? What impact might it have on our magnetic shielding from solar radiation? Any other impacts one may consider that I haven't would be interesting to hear about, also. -- Steve ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 1 Jun 84 15:37:18 CDT From: Carl Rosene Subject: Re: SPACE Digest V4 #209 To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC.ARPA Message-Id: <20.animal.Dione@Rice> Concerning the name of moon stuff (soil). It already has a name separate from "soil", "regolith". ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 1 Jun 84 13:10 EST From: Charles Weems To: space@mit-mc.arpa Subject: Eclipse report. What an experience! Four of us from UMass went down to N. Carolina for the eclipse and met 7 other people from New England/New York (part of a plan formed at Stellafane last year). It poured all the way down except for 70 miles of fog in Penn.! Crossing the N.C. border we got a severe storm warning for the county we were camping in! Once we got there it rained for about another hour and then let up enough for us to pitch camp. By morning there were large breaks in the clouds that kept getting bigger. About 10 minutes before first contact, the last line of clouds passed off to the east and we had 100 percent clear, haze free sky! Only a chorus of angels could have made it more of a miracle -- but then we were singing and whooping ourselves... We had perfect skies right up until about 10 minutes after last contact when another line of clouds started to come in from the west. The Sun itself had several small groups of spots and one especially large one. It was particularly interesting to watch the moon pass in front of this spot because the speed became much more apparent then. Mountains on the limb were clearly visible. As it approached annular phase, little bits broke off to form beads at the tips of the crescent. Annularity only lasted about 5 seconds. The most impressive thing was that there was continuous action -- no pause at all when you could just sit back and take it all in, like in a total eclipse. The beading effects continuously shifted around and then, of course, the mountains on the opposite edge of the moon became visible quite suddenly. The whole thing was quite spectacular! A quick glance with the naked eye showed that the little bit that was still visible was so bright that it was barely possible to tell that it was only an annulus that was shining. Such is the power of fusion! There was no diamond ring effect at all, and the beads were very elongated -- looking more like dashed lines. One of the people swore that he saw corona just before annularity, opposite the nearly vanished crescent. For the remainder of the event it was interesting to watch the reappearance of the sunspot groups, and then last contact. Other impressions: The light was very strange: sharp noontime type shadows, but very dim. One horizon was much brighter than the other. There was a definite rise in wind and drop in temperature near annularity, with a sudden calm afterward. It was neet to watch the crescent shaped spots of light under trees change direction. All in all, quite an experience. As a postscript, as we drove back into Amherst last night we saw a very thin 33 hour old crescent moon set in the west, through the first break in the clouds that they've had here in days (in fact we had to drive through 5 inces of water at the foot of the bridge crossing the Connecticut river, because it was flooding -- we had missed something like 8 inches of rain here -- and got sunburns to boot!) chip weems Turtle Tip Observers Group ------------------------------ Date: 31 May 84 10:44:16-PDT (Thu) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: ihnp4!mhuxl!ulysses!allegra!mouton!karn @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: AMSAT article in L-5 News Be sure to see the article "Low Cost Space Projects: Part 1" in the April 1984 issue of the L-5 News on page 3. This is an excellent discussion of AMSAT's activities in satellite construction. Is the author (Bill Ganoe, N7EAB) out there somewhere? I'd like to personally thank him. 73, Phil Karn, KA9Q Asst VP Engineering, AMSAT ------------------------------ Date: 31 May 84 11:57:14-PDT (Thu) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: ihnp4!mhuxl!ulysses!allegra!mouton!karn @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: Lets hear it for Private Enterprise I read an AP article last night saying that TCI (Transpace Carriers, Inc, the company that just bought the Delta marketing rights from NASA) has written President Reagan asking him to prohibit ESA from marketing the Ariane launcher in the USA because of its "unfair competition" due to government subsidies. Funny they didn't make this a condition of their buying the Delta. If this crybaby attitude is to be the standard way that "private enterprise" promotes its interests in space, then we're in a lot of trouble. Phil ------------------------------ Date: 30 May 84 12:30:11-PDT (Wed) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: ihnp4!houxm!mhuxl!ulysses!allegra!alice!alb @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: Test Firing on Friday The main engines of the Discovery will be test fired together Friday for the first time. The trial is scheduled to begin at 1100 EST and last for 20 seconds, plenty of time to build up to a full 1.1 million pounds of thrust. After the test, NASA will set a firm date for the launch of 41-D. Target date is 19 June. ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 03-Jun-84 0407 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #211 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 211 Today's Topics: "soil" vs. "regolith" and "regosol" High Frontier Space station game soil fish Re: Fish in Space L5 Regional Conference ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 2 June 1984 09:45-EDT From: Robert Elton Maas To: buell%lsu.csnet @ CSNET-RELAY cc: SPACE-ENTHUSIASTS @ MIT-MC If what you see through a pinhole camera looking at an annular eclipse of the Sun is merely a thin ring, it's a simple pinhole image. Through a tree with lots of funny-shaped pinholes you'll see lots of these overlapped, with some images incomplete because the pinhole is directional and blocks out light from part of the Sun. If what you see through a pinhole camera also includes ridges parallel to the ring inside and outside of it, you're seeing diffraction. With irregular ring, Bailey's beads, diffraction ridges may wave in&out and cross each other. Through a tree it's hard to distinguish diffraction of irregular annulus from overlapping independent images. (Above explanation originated in my head; correct me if my physics is wrong.) ------------------------------ Date: 2 June 1984 10:02-EDT From: Robert Elton Maas Subject: "soil" vs. "regolith" and "regosol" To: animal @ RICE cc: SPACE @ MIT-MC Sigh, "regolith" isn't in my Doubleday dictionary, however Roget's International Thesaurus seems to win: (1) 385.13 (types of soils) includes "regosol". (2) 385.1 (synonyms to "land") includes "regolith". Here are the complete entries: 385. LAND .1 NOUNS land, ground, earth, ge(o)-, soil, agro-, ped(o)-, glebe [archaic], sod, clod, dirt, dust, clay, marl, mold [Brit dial]; terra [L], terra firma; terrain; dry land; arable land; marginal land; grassland, woodland; crust, earth's crust, lithosphere; regolith; ******** topsoil, subsoil; aluvium, aluvion; eolian or subaerial deposit; real estate, real property, landholdings, acres, territory, freehold; region; the country. .13 soils adobe, aluvial soil, argil, bog soil, bole, boulder clay, chernozemic soil, china clay, clay, clunch, desertic soil, dust, fuller's earth, gilgai soil, gumbo, gumbo soil, humus, indurated clay, kaolin, kaolinite, laterite, latosolic soil, leaf mold, lithosol, loam, loess, marl, mold, podosolic soil, porcelain clay, potter's clay, red clay, regosol, regur soil, residual clay, snd, sedimentary clay, silt, till, ******* tundra soil, wiesenboden. I get the impression that "regolith" refers to the terrain rather than the material, wheras "regosol" refers to some kind of material. Can somebody confirm my guess that "regosol" is the material that the lunar "regolith" terrain is made out of, or not? ------------------------------ Date: 1 Jun 84 13:58:53-PDT (Fri) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: hplabs!sdcrdcf!sdcsvax!alex @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: High Frontier Why are those people opposed to High Frontier so adamantly against any form of space defense? Don't know about you, but I'd rather be able to defend against some nut like the one that runs Libya than not defend at all. The American people might well agree with me, if they knew we had no defense at all. Most still think that SPRINT and SPARTAN still are up & running. How does it feel to live in a country that, with six months' notice, still couldn't shoot down an incoming warhead? Alex ------------------------------ Date: 2 Jun 1984 18:06:40-EDT From: Dale.Amon at CMU-RI-FAS Subject: Space station game I might note that Stan Kent was also one of the originals involved with the Percheron 1 project, was (and maybe still is) the founder and president of Delta Vee, the organization that raised and donated money to NASA to keep the Viking data analysis going. (Feed a starving robot) He also attempted a Helley fund, but that venture wasn't terribly successful. The first time I met him he was trying to get the networks to fund a TV camera probe to Halley as a media event, since it wouldn't cost anymore than "they pay for the olympics". ------------------------------ Date: 2 Jun 1984 18:19:14-EDT From: Dale.Amon at CMU-RI-FAS Subject: soil The 'soil' of the moon and other bodies is usually referred to as regolith. ------------------------------ Date: 2 Jun 1984 18:25:27-EDT From: Dale.Amon at CMU-RI-FAS Subject: fish I don't remember where I read it, but it has been suggested that fish could survive in zero gravity as long as there was sufficient mist to keep the gills wet. In microgravity the water itself is unnecessary for support and locomotion, although admittedly swimming motions will be less efficient in a fluid as thin as air... Gives one the vision of a pet fish floating by the control panel... ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 2 Jun 84 18:48:08 CDT From: Ben Chase Subject: Re: Fish in Space To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC.ARPA Message-Id: <6.bbc.Tethys@Rice> I believe that Dupont, 3M, or some similar corporation has developed a membrane which would solve the aeration problem, passing oxygen and other important gases. Still, stray bubbles in the tank from other sources (algae, decomposition, imperfectly filling the tank, etc.) could be quite a problem, as fish might accumulate them in the slime around their gills. At any rate, bubbles could probably be removed by piping the water through a centrifuge, and removing the foam from the center. Benjamin B. Chase Department of Computer Science Rice University ------------------------------ Date: 3 Jun 1984 00:47:12-EDT From: Dale.Amon at CMU-RI-FAS Subject: L5 Regional Conference 1984 Northeast Regional Space Developement Conference The Pittsburgh Hilton will be the site of an L5 regional conference on October 26 through 28 of this year. We have negotiated a very reasonable conference rate of $45/night for single rooms and $55/night for doubles. The speakers list is not yet ready for release, but expect a good one. If you are from the Northeast, Mid-Atlantic or Midwest regions, join us for the festivities! Conference Schedule Friday, Oct 26 5:00pm: Registration Evening: Reception (cash bar) Dr. Sheffield opening address Filk (Fiction Folk) songs by Julia Ecklar Saturday, Oct 27 Morning: Chapter Workshops Afternoon: Public sessions Evening: Banquet Diane Ackerman poetry reading SOFEX music/multimedia experience Sunday, Oct 28 Morning: L5 chapter reports Afternoon: Public sessions 3:00pm: Closing ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Conference preregistration form: detach and return with check to Pgh L5 Banquet Registration Registration Before Oct 1 After Oct 1 L-5 Members $18.24 $25 $30 Non-members $18.24 $35 $45 Name____________________________________________________________________ Address_________________________________________________________________ City__________________________State____________________Zip______________ Amount Enclosed_______________L5 Id number______________________________ Make check payable to: L5 Regional Space Developement Conference 2609 Larkins Way Pittsburgh, PA 15203 ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 04-Jun-84 0405 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #212 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 212 Today's Topics: eclipse Test Firing Delayed Re: Space Shuttle Magazine (COUNTDOWN) Definitions of "regolith" and "regosol" Re: Putting it all together ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 8 Jun 84 0:04:38-EDT (Fri) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: ihnp4!mhuxl!mhuxd!cwc @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: eclipse - Out of ignorance of the pertinent factors, I wonder why, if total eclipses are such a big astronomical deal (I assume they are), wasn't the shuttle scheduled to be in orbit during the recent one? If the scientific community gets added value from flying airplanes at high altitudes to take pictures, wouldn't the 70mm on the shuttle have been that much better? Chip ------------------------------ Date: 31 May 84 21:41:39-PDT (Thu) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: hplabs!sdcrdcf!sdcsvax!akgua!clyde!burl!ulysses!allegra!alice!alb @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: Test Firing Delayed NASA today delayed Friday's test firing of the Discovery's SSME's until Saturday. The delay was to give technicians an extra day to fix two problem: Trouble with some heat shielding over one engine and a dent in a hydrogen line. ------------------------------ Date: 21 Jun 84 18:09:00-EDT (Thu) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: hplabs!hao!seismo!cmcl2!acf4!kenner @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: Re: Space Shuttle Magazine (COUNTDOWN) I recently subscribed to it. It seems reasonably informative but a bit cutesy. The last issue I got had some air-to-ground transcripts of the SMM repair activities along with an analysis of the failure to grapple, etc. I would rate it "good" but not better. A similar newsletter which I would recommend more is World Spaceflight News. It had lots more dialog and was much more professional. It has lots of interesting data. The current issue says a 1 year subscription is $30 but the ad in Space Digest said $25 and that's what I paid. It's World Spaceflight News Box 98 Sewell, NJ 08080 ------------------------------ Date: 3 Jun 84 14:32:24 EDT From: Dave Subject: Definitions of "regolith" and "regosol" To: space@MIT-MC.ARPA cc: steiner@RUTGERS.ARPA According to Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary the definitions of regolith and regosol are: rego-lith n. [Gk rhegos blanket + E -lith; akin to Skt raga color] : MANTLEROCK. (Ie. Regolith is a synonym of Mantlerock.) rego-sol n. [@i (as in @i) + L @i soil -- more at SOLE] : an azonal soil consisting chiefly of imperfectly consolidated material and having no clear-cut and specific morphology. man-tle-rock n. : unconsolidated residual or transported material that overlies the earth's solid rock. ds ------- ------------------------------ Date: 3 Jun 84 10:36:51-PDT (Sun) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: hplabs!hao!noao!astrovax!ks @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: Re: Putting it all together I think I've got the book for you. It's called "Managing NASA in the Apollo Era", by Arnold S. Levine. It is available as NASA SP-4102 from the U.S. Government Printing office; the book was written in 1981. It is a very management-oriented volume. It discusses how NASA was organized, how it dealt with the President, Congress, contractors, and the military; how NASA headquarters dealt with the individual centers; how the budget process worked; and describes the planning for post-Apollo space programs. My only regret is that the book confined its account to the Apollo years, when NASA was most active (but also when it had the fewest problems.) A volume like this needs to be writted about the 1970's and the Space Shuttle Program (this was the topic of my research paper which lead me to the book.) The book was surprisingly readable; it delivers many informative facts and a reasoned commentary. It will not (by itself) explain all of the various NASA programs underway in the 1960's, so it is a good idea to have some familiarity with these in order to not get lost. The portions of it that I read were very good. I borrowed my copy from the Princeton library. ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 05-Jun-84 0407 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #213 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 213 Today's Topics: total eclipses are a big deal Re: Fish in Space -- water oxygenation Re: High Frontier Re: Fish in space High Frontier eclipse arranged instead of accidented? Engine Test's Early Results Successful cmsg cancel <2820@alice.UUCP> ST III Article -- Whoops! High frontier and planetary science (separate) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- id AA16743; Mon, 4 Jun 84 07:28:18 pdt Date: Mon, 4-Jun-84 04:30:25 PDT From: Lauren Weinstein Subject: total eclipses are a big deal Message-Id: <8406040430.887.0.VT3.0@vortex.UUCP> To: SPACE@MC Indeed, total eclipses ARE a big deal. Unfortunately, the recent eclipse was not total, it was annular, and thusly of much less scientific interest (mainly because the corona is not visible). --Lauren-- ------------------------------ Date: 04 Jun 84 09:11:21 PDT (Mon) To: SAC.Long@Usc-Isie cc: SPACE@Mit-Mc Subject: Re: Fish in Space -- water oxygenation From: Martin D. Katz While it is true that bubbling air through water relies on gravity, there are several other ways which have been used to mix fluids. A few years back there was a push to develop a liquid breathing medium for humans in space (it was intended to increase the level of acceleration which the astronauts could sustain). I believe that the method of choice for oxygenation at that time was to pass the medium (a silicone oil) through a micropore exchanger. The exchanger was just a set of long tubes of a membrane in a oxygen chamber. The membrane had holes small enough to permit the oxygen and carbon dioxide through, but not the silicone oil. For water (which is a very small molecule) it might be hard to find a suitable membrane material. An alternative might be a forced mixing chamber followed by a filter to separate out the gas phase. In this system, the filtered water and oxygen would be pumped into an agitated mixing chamber, and the out through a tube. The tube's inner walls would be porous to encourage the creation of bubbles of the gas phase. The end of the tube would be a small diameter nozzle which directs the stream into a porous packing, and then back into the water tank. The gasses escape from the stream just after it escapes the nozzle, and are filtered (to remove carbon dioxide and water) and recycled. This design is based on a modification of the carrier filtration used in some chemical laboratory equipment (combined gas chromatograph - mass spectrometer). The problem of preventing pressure gradients still remains because the water must be pumped to oxygenate it. If the level of diffusion is large enough, the section which is being pumped can be separated from the main tank by a porous partition. ------------------------------ Date: 04 Jun 84 09:38:33 PDT (Mon) To: hplabs!sdcrdcf!sdcsvax!alex@Ucb-Vax cc: space@Mit-Mc, arms-d@Mit-Mc Subject: Re: High Frontier From: Martin D. Katz Why are those people opposed to High Frontier so adamantly against any form of space defense? Don't know about you, but I'd rather be able to defend against some nut like the one that runs Libya than not defend at all. If I thought that space defense would create a net improvement in civilian safety in the U.S. then I might go for it. I believe that the terrorist types would be more likely to smuggle weapons in than to try to create a sub-orbital rocket system which could target a city in the U.S. Given the simplicity of a fission weapon compared to even a missile which could deliver the weapon from 100 killometers away, I can't belive that a small country or small group would take that as the best way to deliver the weapon. Given a supply of fissionable material, preformed components could be smuggled in as part of machinery (e.g. inside automobile gas tanks) in only a few pieces. Fussion weapons are, of course, much more complicated, but fission weapons are sufficient for most of the needs of a small country. It is only large countries opposing large countries which need fussion weapons and ICBMs to satisfy their purposes. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 4 Jun 84 14:06 EDT From: Chris Jones Subject: Re: Fish in space To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC.ARPA Message-ID: <840604180644.951703@MIT-MULTICS.ARPA> One of the Skylab flights took along some fish (I believe they were minnows or guppies). I don't have any references available, but I remember that the fish that were launched seemed to have a lot of orientation problems, while those that hatched in weightlessness did a lot better. I don't recall hearing anything special about oxygenating the water. What I'd really like to see is a bird in space (how about an owl--I read an anectdote about one in Clarke's "Islands in the Sky"). ------------------------------ Date: 4 June 1984 22:12-EDT From: Robert Elton Maas Subject: High Frontier To: hplabs!sdcrdcf!sdcsvax!alex @ UCB-VAX cc: SPACE @ MIT-MC Space-based missile defense has been discussed a lot in ARMS-DISCUSSION. To avoid duplication, discussion on this topic probably should remain there. ------------------------------ Date: 5 June 1984 01:07-EDT From: Robert Elton Maas Subject: eclipse arranged instead of accidented? To: ihnp4!mhuxl!mhuxd!cwc @ UCB-VAX cc: SPACE @ MIT-MC More to the point - an eclipse is a local event, due to your point of view rather than to the Universe out there. It's not that the Moon is eclipsing the Sun, it's that you here on Earth happen to be passng through the Moon's shadow, it is you not the Sun that is being eclipsed. (By comparison, in a lunar eclipse the Moon really is getting eclipsed, it really is dark on the Moon during a lunar eclipse.) So why not send a spacecraft with camera out to a looping (elliptical) polar orbit where it passes through the Moon's shadow every month instead of just every few years? With several such craft, you could get hours of coverage, just a few minutes from each camera but by combining the info from them all you get hours. Or have one camera on a craft that dynamically tracks the moon's shadow (specifically, the tip of the Umbra where the disk of the Sun is exactly blocked out showing the lower corona best) during the times when it's nowhere near Earth (all year except for a few days in May/June and November/December around new moon when the tip of the umbra passes near Earth). Or for a really close look at the Sun's corona, without having to avoid any obstacles, station a camera in the tip of Mercury's umbra! (When we get large space manufacturing, we'll be able to manufacture our own disk to blot out the Sun, instead of having to use natural planetary bodies.) ------------------------------ Date: 3 Jun 84 9:11:20-PDT (Sun) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: ihnp4!houxm!mhuxl!ulysses!allegra!alice!alb @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: Engine Test's Early Results Successful Preliminary examination of the engine test yesterday led to very successful results, and NASA is expected to announce a launch date sometime this week. ------------------------------ Date: 3 Jun 84 20:17:52-PDT (Sun) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: ihnp4!mgnetp!burl!ulysses!allegra!alice!alb @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: cmsg cancel <2820@alice.UUCP> ------------------------------ Date: 3 Jun 84 20:20:30-PDT (Sun) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: ihnp4!mgnetp!burl!ulysses!allegra!alice!alb @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: ST III Article -- Whoops! My apologies if you saw my ST III article in net.columbia. I posted it here out of reflex. I cancelled it, but knowing the net, some people might still get it. ------------------------------ Date: 4 Jun 84 18:48:29-PDT (Mon) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: hplabs!hao!ames-lm!eugene @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: High frontier and planetary science (separate) Thing 1: I guess that many people don't call "Deterrance(sic)" a form of defense. Funny that as time goes on, we see that the umbrella has holes in it. You cannot say that we don't have 'defense.' I don't want to defend the DOD, but there is a problem of scale in your argument. Phil Karn points out that this is not a technological problem (I agree). Libya isn't going to lob an ICBM at us. Analysis shows they could do more harm by sneaking it in (more accurate, less technology [ICBM]). So it become more a matter of combat against a large foe like the USSR. Here the problem is one of easily overwhelming a defensive system [very easily done]. On the other hand, we have never really had a good defensive system. [Pardons to those Bell Labs/Sandia people who worked on Ballistic Missile Defense (BMD)]. The Nike program of air defense and the Safeguard/Sentinel systems always had holes. The question evolves, how much defense are you to pay for, and how much are you willing to absorb? Everybody in this country in this country [like Ronald R.] say "The Soviets believe they can win a nuclear war..." As scientists, we have to learn to ask the right questions. I think the right question is " not whether the Soviets believe they could win (or survive), DO WE BELIEVE WE CAN WIN OR SURVIVE?" I understand the psychology of war fighting, troop moral, and so on. Nuclear war (even so called limited nuclear war) is beyond a scale of imagination that strategic planners and generals cannot conceive, but believe they can conceive: it's very fast and very destructive. [Remember: Herman Kahn had an opinion, not facts. Jacob Bonowski contrasted "knowledge" and "certainty."] You cannot fight a nuclear war with a WWII or earlier mentality. The Generals in the past said that they fight today's war with yesterday's weapons [due to budgetary considerations]. This is only partly true: many Generals also plan by yesterday's methods (tried and ture). You obviously could argue that High Frontier is a 'tomorrow' method. But it won't work. It's too easily overwhelmed and complex. If we could only spend as much on arm control as we do on arm development, perhaps we could come up with better solutions [over-naive sounding]. Again, I believe this discussion belongs in net.politcs and not net.space. Thing 2 on planetary science: I worked with Apollo 17 SAR data. It is called "regolith." I confirm with others have said. I think I could shed some light at the its relation to mantle rock. When the Apollo astronauts {Armstrong and Aldrin} came to California before the moon landing, they met with a number of Caltech and other Planetary scientists in the mountains above LA. There is a significant batholith (large rock body) of a mineral called anorthosite (sp?) in the Angeles mountains about LA and it turns out that it was theorized that the moon was largely composed of this igneous rock. The astronauts were given a geology lesson based on this material was (like granite) was slowly cooled mantle material. This body is also significant because it's sister body sits on the opposite side of the San Andreas fault 200 or so miles away and if you date the rocks, you can determine the rate the fault has moved! I know the Caltech planetary science department is not on the net [They have a Prime without UNIX.], but the USGS (!menlo70 or !seismo) might know more. Final aside: a friend who was Neil Armstrong's geology teacher said that he thought Neil was the craziest person he ever knew (shortly after Neil ejected from the LEM training craft). --eugene miya NASA Ames Res. Ctr. {hplabs,hao,menlo70,dual,research}!ames-lm!statvax!eugene ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 06-Jun-84 0406 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #214 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 214 Today's Topics: re: candidates' views on space Re: artificial eclipse Re: High Frontier, nuclear terrorism, and other fun things Re: eclipse arranged instead of accidented? eclipses and astronomers Re: SPACE Digest V4 #213 Volunteering for AMSAT Re: Fish in Space -- water oxygenation Seminar at Ames Res. Ctr. on Soviet Space (long mesg,short summ) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 3 Jun 84 15:09:03-PDT (Sun) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: decvax!ittvax!dcdwest!sdcsvax!sdcrdcf!trwrb!trwspp!brahms @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: re: candidates' views on space I grant you the fact that Reagan may be more pro-defense than pro-space but he is doing more than any of the democrats would. However, what ever his motives for doing a space station are, he won't be in office when it goes up. -- Brad Brahms usenet: {decvax,ucbvax}!trwrb!trwspp!brahms arpa: Brahms@USC-ECLC ------------------------------ Date: 5 Jun 1984 06:29:47 PDT From: CARROLL@USC-ISIB Subject: Re: artificial eclipse To: space@MIT-MC As I recall, Skylab had a solar observatory called the Apollo Telescope Mount or some such, and they conducted a plethora of experiments, learning more about the sun during the 3 missions than had previously been learned in all of history. One of the things they did was create artificial eclipses by using a device that placed a small disk out in front of the telescope. In space, that small disk just inches or feet away effectively simulated a natural eclipse whenever they wanted. Steve ------------------------------ Date: 4 Jun 84 14:22:33-PDT (Mon) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: hplabs!sdcrdcf!sdcsvax!alex @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: Re: High Frontier, nuclear terrorism, and other fun things Even if HF is only 80% effective against a massive attack, I would much rather have it than not. Come on: wouldn't you rather (in the even of a nuke attack of 1000 warheads) have 20% land than 100%? The attitude of the UCS, Carl Sagan, et al, seems to be that one bomb will kill us all (Hiroshima/Nagasaki notwithstanding). {This discussion presupposes that I don't want ANY bombs landing, in case you were wondering.} In re "hostage cities" (smuggled bombs): this is an ooooold argument. Assuming that some terrorist group (say, Libya) really wanted to take out a city, they'd likely do it in a cost-effective manner. Dams are much easier to blow than bombs are to buy. LP gas tanks are even easier, and as kill-effective. OK, let's assume they have a bomb anyway. The US gov. has ways to detect bombs, once it knows they're around--even from space. Back to HF. Having some form of defence moves the U.S. away from a strict launch-on-anything policy, which is almost necessary with 9 minute flight times. It makes our forces more likely to survive, gives the president more breathing room, and gives us a defence against small numbers of incoming RVs. Sure, the arms race may go into space; why not? Better there than on Earth. Any country that starts using nukes in space is going to (a) show the whole world he means war and (b) take out all of his own sats. This means a higher "tripwire" level--and more warning. And let's remember that all of HF's plans are non-nuclear. No nukes in space, no new nukes (three times fast, now) other than MX. And much cheaper than "mobile missiles" a la Midgetman. Those who think HF is destabilizing are invited to tell me why. Please address the question of how the U.S. is likely to run a first strike. Alex P.S. The original nickname of MX (Peacekeeper) was Hallmark. Anyone know why? ------------------------------ Date: 5 Jun 84 14:28:03 PDT (Tuesday) From: Lynn.es@XEROX.ARPA Subject: Re: eclipse arranged instead of accidented? To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC.ARPA cc: Lynn.es@XEROX.ARPA Once you get out of the atmosphere, a disk an inch across and a few feet away is just as good as the moon in causing an eclipse. So there is no need to follow the moon's shadow for continuous corona watching. I believe Skylab had such an occulting disk in its solar equipment. In fact occulting disks are used in earth based coronagraphs, but most of the corona is washed out by sky light. /Don Lynn ------------------------------ Date: 5 Jun 1984 18:13:15-EDT From: Bruce.Lucas@CMU-CS-IUS To: space@mit-mc Subject: eclipses and astronomers Correct me if I'm wrong, but an eclipse is only such a big deal to an earthbound solar astronomer. An astronomer in space can create his own eclipse (of the sun) with an opaque disk. The only reason this doesn't work on the earth is because of the earth's atmosphere: the disk successfully blocks out the direct light from the sun, but not the light diffused by the atmosphere. Bruce Lucas ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 5 Jun 84 17:17 EDT From: Kyle.wbst@XEROX.ARPA Subject: Re: SPACE Digest V4 #213 To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC.ARPA cc: Kyle.wbst@XEROX.ARPA Why all this traffic on fish in space. Is it to find ways to raise them for food for L-5 type colonies, or what. If for food, then perhaps a simple solution would be to send up carp. They thrive in any hostile environment. Just give them some wet mud to root around in. ------------------------------ Date: 4 Jun 84 10:52:33-PDT (Mon) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: ihnp4!houxm!hocda!hou3c!burl!ulysses!allegra!mouton!karn @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: Volunteering for AMSAT We in AMSAT have recently been revamping the way we handle offers of volunteer help. Up 'till now, it has been a very informal thing, but we are coming to realize that a lot of excellent talent has slipped through the cracks because we haven't provided a central point of contact for initial inquiries. Dick Jansson, WD4FAB, has taken on the job of coordinating volunteer services. He and I have drafted a form letter which he will send to anyone who expresses interest. This letter contains a list of the various project areas and the AMSAT people who are active in them. If you are interested in possibly helping out, please drop Dick a line. His address is: Dick Jansson, WD4FAB 1130 Willowbrook Trail Maitland, FL 32751 You can also reach him through the Washington PO Box address, but it takes longer since the mail has to be forwarded. Thanks & 73, Phil Karn, KA9Q Asst VP Engineering, AMSAT ------------------------------ Date: 5 Jun 84 12:57:04-PDT (Tue) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: hplabs!intelca!cem @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: Re: Fish in Space -- water oxygenation I believe there was a "Mr. Wizard" type movie I saw in High School science class that included a Oxygen Porus membrane. The movie had a Gerbil happily walking around under water without apparent ill effects. Seems we could save a lot on scuba gear if we could hook one of these to a person. Apparently the lungs/trachia were left intact and functioning. Anyone remember the title to this classic? Was the membrane ever followed up? -- --Chuck McManis ihnp4! Disclaimer : All opinions expressed herein are my \ own and not those of my employer, my dual! proper! friends, or my avacado plant. / \ / fortune! \ / X--------> intelca!cem ucbvax! / \ \ / \ hplabs! rocks34! ARPAnet : "hplabs!intelca!cem"@Berkeley / hao! ------------------------------ Date: 5 Jun 84 17:43:59-PDT (Tue) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: hplabs!ames-lm!eugene @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: Seminar at Ames Res. Ctr. on Soviet Space (long mesg,short summ) Today, we had a Director's Colloquia on the Soviet Space Program. I am sorry, but I should have taken a note pad. I asked the speaker for a copy of slides, and will repost a summary if there is enough interest. The speaker was Marcia Smith of the Library of Congress who gives Congressional briefings. Don't call her, she doesn't assist the public, you will be refused. Ms. Smith covered ths history of the program from 1957 to the future. The program is divided in civilian and military (30/70%) programs like the US program. These are further broken into five "US classification" missions: unmanned applications, manned (and unmanned) uses [military and non- military]. At this point, slides would better help. There was a Cyrllic breakdown of mission names with Kosmos being used as generic satellite names and numbers, military missions, and failures. There was a discussion of the Soviet use of near Earth missions [they use satellites for communications, earth resources, navigation, etc.., interesting analysis: older space technology->using film instead of electronics for imaging in civilian and military applications], missions to Mars [few successes], Moon, and Venus [lots of success: 16 missions with two inflight and two more planned including the Halley Flyby with Venus lander], an analysis of the manned program [failures with cosmonaut losses] and military uses [ocean survillance program, FOBS, and ASAT programs]. A map illustrated their three launch Centers which by coincidence correspond to NASA's three launch sites as far as functions go. The USSR has several problems with their geographic location. The furthest Southern launch site is at lat. 46 deg. N. Their first communications satellites used a highly elliptic orbit because of the fuel costs in launching a geosynchronous satellite (not done till 1974). Instead their communications satellites are useful for 8 hours before switching. They have an Eastern-Bloc equivalent to our international satellite agreements. They are just now discovering natural resource sensing like our Landsat program. Their data is publically available from their natural resource agency. Again, they typically use film rather than digital media. Their biological satellite program has launched plants and fish into orbit. It is somewhat behind the US space program, they only in 1982 reproduced seed-to-seed experiments. An analysis of the manned program shows various phases of development from "moon program" to the current space station developments and future "shuttle and space plane [two separate]" programs. Marcia (the speaker) detailed accidents such as the recent pad fire which resulted in the escape tower being used. On moon missions there have been three successful sample returns and it is important to point out they had two rovers, one of which worked for a year. Their agreement with other nations on communications satellites has allowed them to send people from 9 other nations into space. Notable was the French man who was a "spatia-naut" rather than either of the other designations. This might be a trend for future countries. The Soviets have EXTENSIVE experience because of their space station with problems such as inflight refueling, repair and construction including installing new solar panels on their station. One new set of panels are GaAs technology rather than Si! This is an area where we (the US) lag considerably. The Soviets have two manned reusable reentry programs: a scaled down space shuttle and what the Pentagon terms "space plane" which has appeared in AW&ST courtesy of the Aust. DOD. It was first learned [by the way] in 1978 because a California listener to Radio Moscow called into the show and asked if the USSR had a Shuttle program. They not only confirmed they had such a program but gave complete specifications regarding size, shape, etc.. Military space: talk centered on ocean monitoring capabilities (for sea ice, too), FOBS (which apparently was included in the SALT II treaty), and ASAT. A slide was also shown depicting a Soviet laser/directed energy beam site for tests. Russian space technology as a whole: if you count the numbers, it appears the Soviets are launching 7x's as much as the US is. This is only because their technology is in some way behind and in other ways, a different approach. They certainly have experience (more man-hours longed in space). There are possibilities for manned missions to Mars, the moon (although the USSR in US News and Report denies this). They also need to get a large booster technology to work. Part of this is predicated on the use of relatively lower power engines. It was surprising to note that the Chinese have demostrated an Oxygen-Hydrogen engine whereas the USSR has not. I have left a lot out. I could post satellite designations after I get slides. If specific questions are posted to the net, I will try an answer them as best I can. Please don't send individual questions on this, as I would prefer to answer each question a small number of times (Remember Emily Post of the net?). All sources are from the open literature. Several audience members have visited Soviet space sites and confirmed an openness to talk. (Again this is the Civilian space program.) The only questions I asked (of the speaker) were greeted by "cannot comment [military reasons]." I will be leaving for SLC from Friday for Usenix so give me a week and a half to get back and respond to questions. --eugene miya NASA Ames Res. Ctr. emiya@ames-vmsb {hplabs,hao,research,dual}!ames-lm!statvax!eugene ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 07-Jun-84 0407 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #215 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 215 Today's Topics: Re: High frontier (reasonably long defense discussion) communications via satellite Re: High Frontier, nuclear terrorism, and other fun things MX as Hallmark Fish in space... Missiles (so why do you put a spike on top?) Re: Missiles (so why do you put a spike on top?) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 5 Jun 84 15:55:56-PDT (Tue) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: hplabs!sdcrdcf!sdcsvax!alex @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: Re: High frontier (reasonably long defense discussion) Well, the following is a reply to a message by dmw@cmu-cs-vlsi, but it applies to the latter half of the latest message, too: (His:) The arguments on both sides of this issue have been described in many other places. I will confine myself to the main points. 1) Directed energy weapons are a long time and a lot of dollars away. There are a number of cheap straightforward countermeasures that makes their task much harder, such as finishing boost phase in the atmosphere. (my replies follow his arguments:) I never mentioned DE weapons. "Shotguns in space" are fine for me. 2) Homing warheads still don't work very well and are subject to the usual countermeasures. EH? Hmm, I guess SAMs, HAWKs, AMRAAMs, and Sparrows should all be scrapped as useless. After all, they are nothing but homing warheads. It's a shame that the Air Force has never hit Kwajalein with any of their RVs, either. 3) Space defenses must be in space, where they are vulnerable. even if you coat them with lots of rock, their sensors are still vulnerable. Not true. Pop-ups can be built if space starts getting vulnerable. Besides, any attack on one of our sats is an act of war; hence, more warning. 4) More missiles is probably cheaper than more defense satellites, if that's the way the Russians choose to respond. Richard DeLauer, undersecretary of defense for research and engineering has stated that arms control must be combined with space defenses if they are to work. 5) Bombers and cruise missiles will still exist, and most big US cities are on the coast. Tactical weapons will also still exist. So? Wouldn't you rather shoot down some missiles than none at all? Bombers/cruise are recallable until no-return point. The Russians use turboprop aircraft which we can see coming from a looooong distance. If they switch, we've time to think about appropriate responses. Only missiles are game as soon as they are launched; only they have flight times of minutes, too. His is a non-argument--HF isn't going to make war impossible, merely less likely. It will raise the level above which we MUST launch, for fear of an incoming attack. As far as tac nukes go, we can detect them if we know they're there. There are more profitable ways for a terrorist organization to kill millions. Russia isn't going to blow up US cities one at a time. (his summary:) In summary, it is not at all clear that a space defense system will work very well. Even if it does work, it might not measurably increase US security, and may just wind up being a big money sink. The goal of a perfect defense seems very far away. It more likely would just add an element of uncertainty for any attacker, and there are far cheaper ways to do this, such as point defense of ICBM silos. Treaties reducing the ratio of warheads to launch vehicles would accomplish the same goal at a much lower price. (my reply:) I wish I had his hope for treaties. Shame the Russians haven't kept one they've signed, including SALT II. I never claimed for this straw man, "the perfect defense". That's an argument that McNamara advanced, and it's patently foolish. Are tanks a "perfect defense" against artillery? Are Nylon vests "perfect" against bullets? No, but they're a damn sight better than the alternatives. Same for High Frontier. I don't see how his arguments, even if true, lead inescapably to space defense "/not working very well/". My reasons: HF need NOT, repeat *NOT* be perfect to offer a serious countermeasure. It need only boggle up the Russian's targeting plans to the point that they are NOT sure they will blow up all our silos. The arithmetic is simple: they may know that only 25% of their attack isn't going to make it, but they will have no way of knowing _which_ 25%. If they don't know for certain whether they will destroy all our missiles & bombers, their plans are cast with doubt. _This_ _is_ _all_ _a_ _defense_ _need_ _do_ _to_ _have_ _an_ _effect_. It must merely have a good chance of succeeding. Not even the Russians are crazy enough to test against such a system by experiment. Let's not forget that HF's first step is neither space-based nor very expensive. Simple point-defense of our current missile silos would be a defense bargain, pure and simple. Does anyone seriously object to defending our silos? Alex P.S. Please, if you're going to offer anti-defense arguments, answer the implicit questions above. Ask yourself if this level of uncertainty in targeting calculations are worth the money. If not, why not? I weary of getting the same old arguments already answered by HF literature. ------------------------------ Date: Wednesday, 6 Jun 1984 17:10-EDT From: jhs@Mitre-Bedford To: space@mit-mc Cc: Subject: communications via satellite (NOTE - I am not currently on this mailing list so please address replies, if any, to jhs at mitre-bedford.arpa directly.) Perhaps this is not news to most space fans, but... Don't just TALK about it, DO something about it! The amateur radio community is gearing up in a big way for satellite packet radio worldwide. (The ham radio community has had its own radio satellites for many years, but digital packet radio via satellites is the newest gleam in the eye.) The mailing list INFO-HAMS @ SIMTEL20 includes some news items about this exciting new hobby opportunity. -John Sangster jhs at mitre-bedford.arpa P. S.: Learning the code is NOT that big a deal, especially at 5 WPM. ------------------------------ Date: 6 Jun 84 14:50:44 PDT (Wednesday) From: Beeley.ES@XEROX.ARPA Subject: Re: High Frontier, nuclear terrorism, and other fun things To: space@MIT-MC.ARPA cc: Beeley.ES@XEROX.ARPA Re: Even if HF is only 80% effective against a massive attack, I would much rather have it than not. I am sorry if this message is inappropriate for this distribution list, but the attitude expressed by this type of thinking both confounds and depresses me. Its sort of the John Wayne approach to Nuclear warfare -- they may get me and my buddies, but by God and country, we will prevail! I noticed a change in myself in the last 6 years. I used to fly in airplanes without a thought to my personal safety -- what the hell, if it went down, it went down. But 6 years ago I had a son, and 3 years later I had a daughter and all of a sudden my attitude towards flying with them along changed to one of caution and concern. I want them to survive! I want my kids and all the other kids on this planet to live to make it a better world for all, or at least have their shot at it. Nuclear war will not allow my children nor any other children in the world to grow in freedom and health. Nuclear warfare will end life on this planet as we know it! It must be comforting to write words like "Come on: wouldn't you rather (in the even of a nuke attack of 1000 warheads) have 20% land than 100%?" NO! 1000, 200, 100, 10 or even ONE warhead would destroy the fabric of our society. This world would never again be the same and it is truely doubtful that it would even be inhabitable. The world has not been the same since the compariviely miniscule atomic bombs were dropped on Japan, and that is primarily a psycological effect. It is also comforting to have an all abidding faith in our technology. I develop computer systems and take pride in the thoroughness of our procedures in implementing and testing our products. But despite our best efforts, bugs still occur, and usually turn up in the most inopportune situations (as predicted by Murphy's law). And here we are spending vast amounts of human and non-renewable resources, bought at our children's expense (via deficit spending), to develop a "defense" system which, ultimately, can never be tested! I wonder what kinds of bugs will show up when the first warhead's distructive force and EMI are felt? I am not a historian, so I ask: has an effective weapon ever been developed that has not been used? I think not, and that is yet another reason to be depressed. Having developed and deployed the MX ("Peacekeeper", aka "Worldender"), the SS-20 and all the other nuclear weapons that are a button's push away from our door steps, it seems inevitable to me that someone will find a reason to use them. I AM depressed. I am depressed that my children MAY NOT LIVE TO SEE NEXT YEAR. I AM depressed that I, as an individual, am powerless to affect an immediate change. I believe that the only hope for my children, the only hope for America, the only hope for the world, is nuclear disarmament. I also believe that this will not happen, but I pray that I am wrong. I hope that the one common demoninator that the people on this planet have -- the love for and concern for the survival of our children -- will overcome the political and nationalistic irrationality that is keeping all of us on the brink of oblivion. "When you've seen one nuclear war, you've seen them all." //John ------------------------------ Date: 6 Jun 1984 21:07:03-EDT From: Hank.Walker at CMU-CS-VLSI Subject: MX as Hallmark I don't know for sure, but I would guess that calling the MX Hallmark refers to "Hallmark - when you care enough to send the very best." ------------------------------ Date: 6 June 1984 14:02-PDT (Wednesday) Sender: TLI @ USC-ECLB From: Tony Li To: Space @ mit-mc Subject: Fish in space... Reply-to: Tli@Usc-Eclb Home: 2632 Ellendale Pl. Apt. 314, Los Angeles, Ca. 90007 (213) 737-8168 The membrane that you're looking for is called Gore-Tex(tm). It's commonly used in camping equipment, and has the admirable property of letting you sweat while keeping you out of the rain. Using two layers of Gore-Tex, you could make a fish sandwich, and create a small pressure differential to let oxygen pass into the water. Cheers, TLi@Eclb ;-) ------------------------------ Date: 2 Jun 84 7:02:02-PDT (Sat) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: hplabs!hao!seismo!cmcl2!floyd!clyde!watmath!utzoo!laura @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: Missiles (so why do you put a spike on top?) I have been reading about the Trident Missiles. I don't understand very much of it very well. The bottom line, as far as I can tell, is that if you want to build a missile you build one that has a metal spike on the end and a disk on the top of the spike. Then they fly faster and a lot more efficiently. Also, if you can get something to burn out by the nose then you are doing a good thing as well. Maybe I am misunderstanding, though, (I said I didn't understand this very well!) I have no idea why this works, but I would like to. What books do you read first so that you can understand such things? Laura Creighton decvax!utzoo!laura@BERKELEY -- Laura Creighton utzoo!laura ------------------------------ Date: 2 Jun 84 17:07:31-PDT (Sat) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: hplabs!hao!seismo!cmcl2!floyd!clyde!watmath!utzoo!henry @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: Re: Missiles (so why do you put a spike on top?) The spike is a devious aerodynamic trick to make up for having a relatively blunt nose. It's a specialized adaptation to the limits imposed by launching from submarines. The reason for the blunt nose is that the missile must meet certain performance specs while being constrained to fit into rather cramped missile tubes aboard submarines. Other things being equal, the blunter the nose's taper is, the shorter it is. For a fixed-length missile tube, this means more of the tube's length is available for the full- diameter part of the body. And this in turn means more propellant, giving longer range and heavier payload. The trouble with a blunt nose is that it creates a lot of drag, most especially so at supersonic speed. Hence the previous generations of sub-launched missiles all had relatively long noses, despite the space penalty involved. (Mid-life refits to some of the Polaris subs included missile-tube caps with concave undersides, to give just a little bit more room for the noses of newer missiles.) For the Trident, some devious person at Lockheed came up with the idea of sticking a little cone on a pole up ahead of the blunt nose, with the whole assembly being retracted into the nose until the missile leaves the tube. It turns out that having, essentially, the point plus the base of a longer nose is almost as good as having the whole longer nose, when supersonic drag is the issue. Laura also notes: ................................................ Also, if you can get something to burn out by the nose then you are doing a good thing as well. First I'd heard of this, but I think I know what it's about. You still have a good bit of empty space between the point of the "invisible nose" and the base formed by the real nose. There will be less of a tendency for the slipstream to flow into this space if there is a modest stream of gas emerging from it constantly. The gas helps "fill in" the nose; you need a constant supply of it (e.g., burning propellant) because the slipstream keeps carrying it away. (This basic method is known to help in other situations, and the extrapolation to the Trident's nose seems plausible.) I don't know exactly what books I'd recommend for this. What I know about the Trident's nose comes from places like Aviation Week and Flight International; the fill-in-the-gap-with-combustion-gas is a phenomenon known from model rocketry. -- Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology {allegra,ihnp4,linus,decvax}!utzoo!henry ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 08-Jun-84 0405 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #216 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 216 Today's Topics: Re: eclipse arranged instead of accidented? June 22 Launch Date Set Re: High Frontier, nuclear terrorism, and other fun things Artificial Eclipse High Frontier Equation for Spiral Galaxy Infra-red emmision from circumstellar particles Re: eclipse arranged instead of accidented? Impact at Cretaceous Boundary: Conclusive Evidence A further response to Alex (posting to say see net.politics) Hallmark/MX Space Weapons and the Kzinti Lesson Re: High Frontier ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 7 June 1984 07:11-EDT From: Robert Elton Maas Subject: Re: eclipse arranged instead of accidented? To: Lynn.es @ XEROX cc: SPACE-ENTHUSIASTS @ MIT-MC Date: 5 Jun 84 14:28:03 PDT (Tuesday) From: Lynn.es@XEROX.ARPA Once you get out of the atmosphere, a disk an inch across and a few feet away is just as good as the moon in causing an eclipse. No it isn't. The parallax of the telescope (or simple camera) lens or primary mirror blurs the edge of the disk. You need something very far away so the parallax across a decent-sized (not pinhole) objective lens/mirror is miniscule compared to the boundary between what you want to see (inner corona) and what you want to blot out (outer photosphere). You can get a crude image with a pinhole camera and inch disk, but that's not as good as you get with a decent telescope&camera and large distant occluding object such as the Moon. ------------------------------ Date: 5 Jun 84 15:54:32-PDT (Tue) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: hplabs!hao!seismo!cmcl2!floyd!clyde!burl!ulysses!allegra!alice!alb @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: June 22 Launch Date Set NASA today announced that Saturday's test of the Discovery's SSME proved that the ship is ''sound'' and set a launch date of 22 June at 0843 EDT. Mission 41-D will land 7 days later at EAFB. ------------------------------ Date: 6 Jun 84 23:18:32-PDT (Wed) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: hplabs!hao!seismo!cmcl2!floyd!whuxle!spuxll!ech @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: Re: High Frontier, nuclear terrorism, and other fun things HF anti-ICBM defenses are destabilizing only if they are effective! How's that again? Take an extreme example. Stipulate that The Bad Guys have developed an anti-missile defense that is 100% effective. They are now in the process of deploying, and will have sufficient capacity to take out The Good Guys entire missile force in, say, two years. Meantime, the Good Guys have the technology too...but the deployment is a year behind the Bad Guys (it took a little while to steal it). OK, Mr. Chief Good Guy. In two years the Bad Guys are going to have, for one glorious year, a first strike. The best you can hope for is that they will offer you generous terms of surrender. The Cold War is over, and the only choice you have is to surrender later or push the big red one while you still can. And the longer you wait the worse the imbalance... The above is, of course, a fantasy. By contrast, any anti-ICBM of high effectiveness BUT LOW CAPACITY is a highly stabilizing device: an accidental launch, or the isolated act of a madman, can be dealt with without "city swapping" and similar lesser-of-the-two-insanities methods. A true defender-of-man would give the damn thing, and a $10 Billion a year budget, to the Swiss to build as many as they want, with the proviso that they only use 'em on the guy who shoots first. (I mention the Swiss because they only make money when EVERYBODY survives, and they know it. Give me enlightened greed any day, it is something I trust.) Giving an anti-ICBM to a true neutral is a nice idea, since you can build down offensive weapons unilaterally as the umbrella opens. Hah, another fantasy. The bottom line on all this is that the worst thing you can do is overplay your hand; if the other side THINKS you are about to have a first strike, they may just take you with them. In the meantime, an attempt to build the needed technology is good news for we who make our living building neat widgets, and the end result is likely to be more stabilizing than not (enough senior scientists have pronounced the project infeasible to suggest, as a fine-tuning on Clarke's dictum, that it is at least going to be HARD, which falls under scenario 2, not 1). =Ned= ------------------------------ Date: 7 Jun 84 08:00 PDT (Thursday) From: DBraunstein.ES@XEROX.ARPA Subject: Artificial Eclipse Re: SPACE Digest V4 #214 To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC.ARPA " .....a device that placed a small disk out in front of the telescope" That device is called a coronagraph. Ya learn somethin' new every day. ------------------------------ Date: 7 Jun 84 08:11 PDT (Thursday) From: DBraunstein.ES@XEROX.ARPA Subject: High Frontier Re: SPACE Digest V4 #214 To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC.ARPA "The attitude of the UCS, Carl Sagan, et al, seems to be that one bomb will kill us all(Hiroshima/Nagasaki notwithstanding)." Um, Alex, what the UCS ( Carl Sagan et al) is the possibility of a nuclear winter resulting from even a limited exchange i.e. 1/3 of the worlds nuclear arsenal. A nuclear winter refers not just to the killing off of the human race, but probably life as we know it, except for maybe bacteria and cockroaches. I think if you read more about the position of the UCS, you might modify be able to express your views more clearly. Try looking back at old issues of SCIENCE magazine. David Braunstein ------------------------------ Date: 6 Jun 1984 15:49:02 EDT (Wednesday) From: Tom Reid Subject: Equation for Spiral Galaxy Does anyone have the equation for the density (illuminance) of a spiral galaxy suitable for graphically printing on an Epson MX-100 with Graftrax? A long time ago, I saw a two-dimensional model but lost it and have never seen a three-dimensional one (but it might be a little computationally excessive for a Z-80). Thank you in advance. I will make the equations I get and the program from it available to all who request. Tom Reid 1105 Criton St. Herndon, Va. 22070 (703) 689-0091 or ARPANET treid at mitre ------------------------------ Date: 7 Jun 1984 8:29-PDT From: dietz%USC-CSE@USC-ECL.ARPA To: space@MIT-MC.ARPA Subject: Infra-red emmision from circumstellar particles Physics Today (May 1984, pages 17-20) has a report that infra-red emmision has been detected from dust rings around 7 nearby stars. The stars are: (1) Vega. The first dust was detected here, by IRAS, and has been confirmed by the Kuiper Airborne Observatory (KAO). The dust has a temp of around 85 K, radiating at 60 microns. The dust is about 85 AU from Vega, is composed of particles with a diameter of at least 1 millimeter (anything smaller would have been removed from orbit by radiation drag). Total mass is at least 300 times the mass of the earth, comparable to the mass of our solar system. (2) Formalhaut. Again, IRAS detected dust here. Temp: 65 K, radius: "slightly larger than Vega". No mass figures available. (3) Beta Pictoris. (4) Epsilon Eridani(!). IRAS has detected dust rings around both these stars. Epsilon Eridani is only about 3 parsecs away, the 11th nearest star to us. Data analysis is incomplete. The Beta Pic disk looks 400 AU wide, and was no width in the orthogonal direction (as seen from earth). The IRAS sattelite used fairly long wavelengths, and so could not resolve these dust rings out beyond 25 parsecs. (5) HL Tauri. (6) R Monocerotis. Rayleigh scattered starlight has been detected from dust particles surrounding these young stars. The HL Tau disk has about 1 Me of mass, the R Mon disk 5 Me. These observations were made from Kitt Peak and Mauna Kea using speckle interferometry techniques. These stars are 150 and 600 parsecs from us, respectively. (7) Lynds 1551/IRS 5. This very young star is still in the molecular cloud that birthed it, and is invisible at visible wavelengths. The IR scattering disk around it is about 500 AU wide. It is near HL Tau. The issue also has a report on the Gravity Probe B sattelite, a sattelite to be placed in polar orbit to detected "gravitomagnetic" effects predicted by general relativity. Some theorists believe this is where GR will have to be amended, in order to make it compatible with quantum mechanics. ------------------------------ Date: 7 Jun 84 10:55:59 PDT (Thursday) From: Lynn.es@XEROX.ARPA Subject: Re: eclipse arranged instead of accidented? To: Robert Elton Maas cc: Lynn.es@XEROX.ARPA, SPACE-ENTHUSIASTS@MIT-MC.ARPA Well, you caught me oversimplifying the principle of the occulting disk to produce your own eclipse. Sorry. However, the parallax objection you bring up was long ago solved. The disk is placed not in front of the telescope, but between lenses or mirrors inside the telescope, at a point where infinitely distant objects come to a focus. Then the disk appears infinitely distant. I have to admit that there are some other practical problems with occulting disk solar telescopes, such as reflections off parts inside the telescope, overheating of the telescope, etc. that do not occur during a real eclipse; but these problems have been solved by good engineering of such instruments. /Don Lynn ------------------------------ Date: 7 Jun 1984 12:22-PDT From: dietz%USC-CSE@USC-ECL.ARPA To: space@MIT-MC.ARPA Subject: Impact at Cretaceous Boundary: Conclusive Evidence An article in Science reports conclusive evidence one or more large extraterrestrial object hit the earth about 65 million years ago, at the end of the Cretaceous period. Scientists have discovered fragments of quartz in the clay layer at the boundary. These fragments show clear signs of being subjected to shock pressures of over 150,000 atmospheres, pressures normally encountered on a large scale only in meteoritic impacts and nuclear explosions. Volcanic events fail to reach these pressures by 2 orders of magnitude. Because there is very little quartz on the ocean floor, this also tends to suggest that an impact occured on land. ------------------------------ Date: 6 Jun 84 9:33:23-PDT (Wed) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: hplabs!ames-lm!eugene @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: A further response to Alex (posting to say see net.politics) In an effort to move the discussion to net.politics, my response is posted there. --eugene miya ------------------------------ Date: 6 Jun 84 14:49:07-PDT (Wed) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: hplabs!hao!seismo!cmcl2!lanl-a!ths @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: Hallmark/MX Why was the MX origonally named Hallmark....."when you care enough to send the very best"! ------------------------------ Date: 6 Jun 84 9:50:55-PDT (Wed) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: hplabs!hao!seismo!cmcl2!floyd!vax135!cornell!uw-beaver!ssc-vax!eder @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: Space Weapons and the Kzinti Lesson 6 June 1984 There is no way to avoid having weapons in space if you are in space at all. Whenever you have lots of energy available, and space travel requires energy, you have the makings of a weapon. For a simple example, imagine the Space Shuttle approaching a Soviet spacecraft, perhaps a reconnaisance bird. The Shuttle turns its aft end to face the spacecraft and proceeds to blast the spacecraft with 6000 lbs of thrust from an OMS engine. This will destroy almost any spacecraft built by either side. In the future, mass-driver reaction engines can be used for machine guns, solar power satellites can fry electronics, asteroid miners can throw rocks, and fusion drives are unhealthy to merely turn on in the vicinity of unshielded poeple. For some references, I recommend reading "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress" by Robert Heinlein, and the 'Known Space' books by Larry Niven. Dani Eder / Boeing Aerospace Company / ssc-vx!eder ------------------------------ Date: 6 Jun 84 14:30:32-PDT (Wed) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: hplabs!hao!ames-lm!barry @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: Re: High Frontier [<+>] I've been following the High Frontier discussion, and decided to throw in a couple of points I haven't seen mentioned elsewhere. One point mentioned frequently by the anti-HF people is that high energy beam weapons won't work as a space defense. If I understand Reagan's "Star Wars" proposal correctly, he is asking for $$$ to pursue research into this very question. The long-term goal may be a space- based defense, but the immediate expenditures are just to get the ball rolling. So, rather than just saying, "it won't work", can't we at least do the research needed to find out if it *does* work? Remember, we're talking about a long-term goal here. Maybe no one will be able to build giant x-ray lasers for decades; so what? The need for such a system will not have disappeared even then, will it? Even if you believe that a political solution to the problem of nuclear weapons is possible (I doubt it), can you be certain it will have been achieved in 20, 30, 40, or even 100 years? If not, consider that spending a little $$ now might mean having an effective defense against nuclear missiles in, say, 20 years instead of 30. Two other arguments frequently used against HF are that it would be too vulnerable, and too expensive to build. Both of these arguments contain the same error. They picture space weapons as developing in isolation. All development from the defense budget, with no other purpose; all building materials shipped up from earth on a space shuttle; etc. We're talking long term. Space based defenses, in the original High Frontier concept, are part of a total space development program. Heavy industry, mining, science, colonization, the whole bit. Large- scale space defenses may well be economical when they're built mostly from non-terrestrial resources; when what is needed from earth can be sent up far more cheaply than Shuttle can do it; and when the economy of this planet is once again booming due to the import of energy and materials from space. Such defenses will also be far less vulnerable than they are pictured to be, when they're part of a wholesale space effort. It'll be harder to know what's a weapon and what's an industrial facility. One final point - let's suppose the HF concept is indeed a bust. What about the spinoffs? Since this country was already spending big bucks on high-energy lasers before the "Star Wars" speech, I would presume that the additional $$ for HF would (for now) be mostly to build up our space capabilities generally; the lasers themselves seem to have a separate budget. Since the government is willing to spend on space weapons, but not on other large-scale space projects (heavy industry, solar power satellites, colonies), maybe us space buffs should take what we can get. The fact is, we are certain in the long run (assuming we survive) to have both heavy civilian and military space development. We might prefer to have peaceful use first and foremost, but the two are interdependent - whichever we start with, we get both in the long run, and development in either area helps along development in the other. I've confined myself to general and long-term arguments here, because I don't know what the immediate proposals are. Does anyone out there know what specific spending proposals for the next 5 years or so, are contained in Reagan's "Star Wars" plan? I think such information would be of general interest. [The opinions expressed herein are my own foolishness, and do not necessarily reflect the views of anyone that matters.] Kenn Barry NASA-Ames Research Center Moffett Field, CA ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Electric Avenue: {dual,hao,menlo70,hplabs}!ames-lm!barry ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 09-Jun-84 0404 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #217 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 217 Today's Topics: Re: High Frontier ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 7 Jun 84 10:37:28-PDT (Thu) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: hplabs!ames-lm!al @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: Re: High Frontier Ken Barry made the point that we should get spin-offs from High Frontier. In general, military work is an inefficient means of generating spin offs. The reasons are fundimental. First, the military is an organization that uses death and destruction to achieve its goals (literally). This is frequently incompatable with living and building. Second, the military must maintain secrecy, thereby inhibiting the transfer of technology to useful ends. As an example, a number of technical conferences in recent months have had papers pulled at the last minute by DOD for 'security' reasons. Many of these papers were not classified! This is not to say that you don't get spinoffs from the military, you do. It is just inordinately expensive in dollars, lives, and property. You'll get far more spinoff per dollar from NASA. Second point. When opponents say Star Wars 'won't work' they mean that it cannot protect the population of the US from a determined Soviet attack. This is true as any knowledgable proponent of star wars will tell you. When Star Wars proponents say is 'can work' they mean that US land based ballistic missles can be protected. This is also true. Do you want to spend $26 billion to RESEARCH protection for missles and then up to $1 trillion to build a system that irrevocably weaponizes space to protect the land based leg of the triad? When I run into a solution with these properties in my work, I know that there is something seriously wrong and look for a better approach. Perhaps we should devote 1% of the DOD budget to non-weapontry means to enhance our security. You never know, we might find something. ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 11-Jun-84 0407 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #218 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 218 Today's Topics: Discovery launch delayed 3 days Opinion clarification on private space ventures American Society of Aerospace Pilots American Society of Aerospace Pilots Re: Reagan's Star Wars plan (simple comment) Re: Magnetic Pole Drift Re: Infra-red emmision from circumstellar particles Soviet Shuttle Re: circumstellar dust 41-D Launch Delayed eclipse arranged instead of accidented? / disk at prime focus Soviet shuttle? Here we go again Nuclear Flames ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 08 Jun 84 1741 PDT From: Ross Finlayson Subject: Discovery launch delayed 3 days To: space@MIT-MC.ARPA a086 0813 08 Jun 84 PM-Space Shuttle, 1st Ld - Writethru, a049,300 Eds: New throughout with launch postponed three days. By HOWARD BENEDICT AP Aerospace Writer CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) - The maiden flight of space shuttle Discovery was delayed three days today, until June 25, so engineers can replace one of its main engines. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration decided to replace the engine after technicians on Thursday discovered a slight separation of a thin metal thermal shield from the lining of a fuel preburner pump in engine No. 1. The shield helps protect the wall of the pump from engine heat during firing. The shield apparently came loose during a 19-second test-firing of Discovery's engines on Saturday. NASA spokesman Hugh Harris said officials had considered four options, with impacts ranging from no delay to a delay of several days. The decision was made today to change the entire engine, replacing it with one from the shuttle Challenger, which is in a hangar here, he said. The change will be made on the launch pad, where Discovery has been for two weeks. The launch had been scheduled for June 22 and the replacement delays the flight until at least June 25, Harris said. Other than replacing the engine, engineers had considered three options: -To use the engine as is, with no impact on the schedule. -To replace the fuel pump, which would take about five days. -To remove the pump and repair it, which would take more than five days, but officials were not able to predict how long. Replacing the engine takes four days but that doesn't mean the launch date would slip by the same number of days because other work could continue during the replacement. Discovery, the third shuttle, will carry a crew of six on a seven-day mission. ap-ny-06-08 1113EDT ********** ------------------------------ Date: 8 Jun 84 17:24:39-PDT (Fri) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: hplabs!ames-lm!eugene @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: Opinion clarification on private space ventures I have received one letter from a person who believed I had negative opinions on private space ventures. This was in response to my long (misspelled in some cases) description of NASA. I have high regard for private space ventures: good luck to them all. However, many people who get involved in such ventures do not realize the sheer difficulty of getting into space. Space technology, unlike electronic or nuclear technology, has not scaled. Gravity is a difficult problem and makes for many assumptions: You cannot turn tight screws and bolts in zero G, you have to seek alternate ways of doing things. Example: from my earlier reporting of Soviet space, a big concern, now taken for granted: it was believed early in space missions that human would not be able to swallow in zero G. Suppose this had been true-> imagine the consequences->a whole technology would have to develop to support the intake of food, mucus and saliva while in space. Fortunately, this was not the case, but other problems have been encountered. Very simple things are no longer possible. These assumptions will make private space ventures difficult (as well as more advanced excursions). Big business is too conservative (what has GM done for space while not on contact? IBM and AT&T have only done what suits them. Would any of these companies develop an ion drive?). The problem with NASA is that the information is there, but it is not publicized well. In an agency run by scientists (and scientifically oriented managers), a different set of things are cut back in budgets: PR in this case [also, we know that scientists are not the best PR people]. So, good luck to all those concern private space ventures. I will wing it in the NASA bureaucracy for a while longer. --eugene miya NASA Ames Res. Ctr. ------------------------------ Date: 8 Jun 84 15:38:57-PDT (Fri) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: hplabs!tektronix!tekigm!douglasg @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: American Society of Aerospace Pilots [Bug Bait.] American Society of Aerospace Pilots(ASAP) For those of you familiar with ASAP, it has recently relocated from Schaumburg, Illinois to Grants Pass, Oregon. The new address is as follows: ASAP Headquarters 946 SE 8th ST Grants Pass, Oregon 97526 Phone: (503)476-8210 And here is some background information about ASAP from their brochure for anyone who is interested. ---------------------------------------------------------- ASAP is a not-for-profit organization with membership open to anyone with a desire to be part of the most unique space organization in the world. ASAP was founded in 1981 by a group of professional pilots whose research indicated widespread interest in the utili- zation of space by private enterprise, the professional pilot community, the general public, and decision makers who could influence the future of spaceflight. ASAP was formed as a vehicle to accelerate the evolution of routine space operations, and to keep the American public informed of developments in this area. Membership in ASAP is open to everyone. As a member, you are invited to participate in the worlds only Spaceflight Ground School. The curriculum is based on NASA's Astronaut Candidate Training Program. Membership is divided into five divisions; Pilot Division, Spacecraft Crewmember, Space Station Operations, Spaceline Operations and Youth. ------------------------------------------------------------- So much for the advertisement. The dues for Full members in any division are $50 per year and for Associate members it is $25 per year. The catch is that full members MUST take the ground school. Since the organization is non-profit and receives no government funding, all member services are paid for by the members and the ground school is paid for by those members attending the ground school. I have personally taken the Space Navigation course and have started the Orbital Mechanics Course. So far they are well thought out and very informative. For more information write ASAP or me. The Space Cadet Douglas Gould Rt #2, Box 111 Yamhill, Oregon 97128 ------------------------------ Date: 8 Jun 84 15:38:19-PDT (Fri) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: hplabs!tektronix!tekigm!douglasg @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: American Society of Aerospace Pilots [Bug Bait.] American Society of Aerospace Pilots(ASAP) For those of you familiar with ASAP, it has recently relocated from Schaumburg, Illinois to Grants Pass, Oregon. The new address is as follows: ASAP Headquarters 946 SE 8th ST Grants Pass, Oregon 97526 Phone: (503)476-8210 And here is some background information about ASAP from their brochure for anyone who is interested. ---------------------------------------------------------- ASAP is a not-for-profit organization with membership open to anyone with a desire to be part of the most unique space organization in the world. ASAP was founded in 1981 by a group of professional pilots whose research indicated widespread interest in the utili- zation of space by private enterprise, the professional pilot community, the general public, and decision makers who could influence the future of spaceflight. ASAP was formed as a vehicle to accelerate the evolution of routine space operations, and to keep the American public informed of developments in this area. Membership in ASAP is open to everyone. As a member, you are invited to participate in the worlds only Spaceflight Ground School. The curriculum is based on NASA's Astronaut Candidate Training Program. Membership is divided into five divisions; Pilot Division, Spacecraft Crewmember, Space Station Operations, Spaceline Operations and Youth. ------------------------------------------------------------- So much for the advertisement. The dues for Full members in any division are $50 per year and for Associate members it is $25 per year. The catch is that full members MUST take the ground school. Since the organization is non-profit and receives no government funding, all member services are paid for by the members and the ground school is paid for by those members attending the ground school. I have personally taken the Space Navigation course and have started the Orbital Mechanics Course. So far they are well thought out and very informative. For more information write ASAP or me. The Space Cadet Douglas Gould Rt #2, Box 111 Yamhill, Oregon 97128 ------------------------------ Date: 9 Jun 84 6:30:58-PDT (Sat) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: hplabs!hao!seismo!uwvax!myers @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: Re: Reagan's Star Wars plan (simple comment) >Man's fist was replaced by a club, the club was then >replaced by a spear, a spear by bow and arrow, arrows >by guns. . . .eventually man discovered Nukes were the >"ultimate" weapon to use against others. > >History shows it takes a BETTER weapon to make another >weapon absolete! *None* of the weapons mentioned are "absolete". Just watch TV for a few hours and you'll see them all. Possessing a superior weapon does not make other weapons obsolete, merely reduces their effectiveness in relative terms. There's a moral about SW systems here somewhere... P.S. Do *you* have enough faith in the programming ability of DOD programmers (or any programmers for that matter) to trust strategic decision making to an automated system? -- Jeff Myers ARPA: myers@wisc-rsch.arpa uucp: ..{seismo, ihnp4}!wisc-rsch!myers ------------------------------ Date: 7 Jun 84 19:26:12-PDT (Thu) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: ihnp4!houxm!hocda!hou3c!burl!ulysses!gamma!pyuxww!pyuxt!marcus @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: Re: Magnetic Pole Drift It is, in fact, most unusual for the the magnetic and rotational poles to coincide precisely. The poles don't actually 'flip' but meander their way to the oposite end of the earth so to speak in over a number of years (hundreds-thousands), and yes, the dipole strength does vary to some extent, though i can't remember by how much. (At present the magnetic axis is varying access is drifting by a few minutes of arc per year - its called the magnetic deviation and on the british mainland is around 8 degrees west at the moment and diminishing) marcus hand (pyuxt!marcus) ------------------------------ Date: 8 Jun 1984 15:16-PDT From: dietz%USC-CSE@USC-ECL.ARPA To: space@MIT-MC.ARPA Subject: Re: Infra-red emmision from circumstellar particles The latest issue of Science has a paper about the material in orbit around Vega. The author argues the total mass of the 85 K material is much less than 300 times the mass of the earth. The problem is this: although primordial particles less than a millimeter across would have decayed into Vega by now, small particles may continually be generated in the ring by collisions of larger bodies. These small particles will dominate IR emission due to their high surface area. The paper estimated the mass of the ring to be around 15 - 45 earths, with the matter there mainly cometary in nature. There may also be 12 micron IR evidence of material much closer to Vega, perhaps consisting of asteroidal debris. The fact that the emmission from comets cuts off closer than 85 AU from Vega argues the comets there have been destroyed, probably accreted onto or ejected by planets. ------------------------------ Date: 09 Jun 84 1155 PDT From: Rod Brooks Subject: Soviet Shuttle To: space@MIT-MC.ARPA a030 0234 09 Jun 84 PM-Space Conference,540 Official: Soviets Copied U.S. Space Shuttle By SCOTT McCARTNEY Associated Press Writer DALLAS (AP) - The Soviet Union has developed its own space shuttle the easy way: by copying the American orbiter, a former high-ranking Defense Intelligence Agency official says. Retired Lt. Col. Thomas H. Krebs, former chief of the DIA's space systems branch, said Friday that the Soviets will launch their space shuttle within a year or two. ''We've seen the (Soviet) orbiter and it's identical to ours,'' Krebs said in his first public speech since leaving the military in January. Krebs said military experts believe the Soviets simply bought a copy of space shuttle blueprints, then improved on the designs by adding engines to the external fuel tank, boosting the vehicle's lifting power. It was a faster, cheaper way of developing an orbiter, he said. ''The space shuttle was totally unclassified. Anyone could buy a set of plans. However, no one has been able to find the requisition,'' he said. Krebs, now research director for a Washington-based space education and lobbying group called High Frontier Inc., said his remarks were based on recently declassified information about Soviet space capabilities and contained no classified secrets. In Washington, DIA sources who spoke only on the condition that they not be identified said they knew nothing specifically about the Soviets getting shuttle blueprints. Krebs addressed a conference on space sponsored by the National Center for Policy Analysis, a conservative Dallas-based think tank. He said the Soviet Union is far ahead of the United States in development of space-based weapons capable of destroying satellites and ballistic missiles, having already developed two land-based laser beam weapons that can destroy satellites in low orbits. The weapons are in the testing stage, he said, and are not fully operational. ''The Soviets are trying to dominate space and, in fact, have already done so at low-altitude orbits and are working on the high-altitude orbits,'' Krebs said. The conference included a debate on President Reagan's ''Star Wars'' initiative to develop high-technology space defenses. John Pike, associate director for space activities for the federation, argued that high-technology defense systems involving orbiting ''killer satellites'' are too vulnerable to provide a reliable defense. ''If we proceed with the president's program, we will junk arms control and lead ourselves down what I and my associates think is a dangerous and uncertain road,'' Pike said. ''Strategic defense (in space) is a mirage.'' Reagan in March proposed a $50 billion program to develop space systems in the next decade. ''We're not out to find a niftier way to fight a war in space. We can prevent nuclear war by using space for defensive purposes,'' argued former Army Gen. Daniel Graham, president of High Frontier. Graham, saying no defense system would be perfect, estimated that a ''Star Wars'' defense could destroy 95 percent of Soviet missiles launched in a massive nuclear attack. ''We would go from mutually assured destruction to mutually assured survival,'' he said. ap-ny-06-09 0534EDT *************** ------------------------------ Date: 8 Jun 1984 2249-PDT From: LEE at SU-STAR Subject: Re: circumstellar dust To: SPACE%MIT-MC at SCORE Reply-To: LEE at SU-STAR Could you explain the radiation drag mechanism?. I don't quite see how it causes orbital decay, although it is clear that such an effect depends on the surface area/mass ratio of theorbiting particle. Emilio P. Calius Stanford U. ------ ------------------------------ Date: 8 Jun 84 12:33:37-PDT (Fri) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: hplabs!tektronix!uw-beaver!cornell!vax135!floyd!clyde!burl!ulysses!allegra!alice!alb @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: 41-D Launch Delayed A loose engine pump shield has caused a three day delay, until 25 June, of the launch of 41-D. NASA will replace the Number 1 engine on the Discovery. Replacing only the pump or the shield would have taken longer. ------------------------------ Date: 10 June 1984 20:03-EDT From: Robert Elton Maas Subject: eclipse arranged instead of accidented? / disk at prime focus To: Lynn.es @ XEROX cc: SPACE-ENTHUSIASTS @ MIT-MC Aha, indeed putting the occluding disk at the prime focus of the solar telescope instead of "in front" solves the parallax problem, and if everything in the light path up to the occluding disk, except the primary mirror, is painted flat black and if all dust is carefully removed from the mirror and everything else along that path, the internal reflection problem should be minimized. (I presume it'd be impossible to eliminate internal reflections in a lens, thus I say mirror instead of lens, but I may be mistaken.) With a long-focal-length primary mirror, so the primary image will be relatively large, diffraction around the edges of the occluding disk should also be minimized. Thanks for the info/correction. (But if the technique is so workable, why are natural eclipses so important even now? Why don't we see wonderful artificially-occluded solar images from space every flight of STS, making natural eclipses moot? My guess, funding is short, STS flights are all booked, ...) ------------------------------ Date: 10 Jun 84 1826 PDT From: Ross Finlayson Subject: Soviet shuttle? To: space@MIT-MC.ARPA a030 0234 09 Jun 84 PM-Space Conference,540 Official: Soviets Copied U.S. Space Shuttle By SCOTT McCARTNEY Associated Press Writer DALLAS (AP) - The Soviet Union has developed its own space shuttle the easy way: by copying the American orbiter, a former high-ranking Defense Intelligence Agency official says. Retired Lt. Col. Thomas H. Krebs, former chief of the DIA's space systems branch, said Friday that the Soviets will launch their space shuttle within a year or two. ''We've seen the (Soviet) orbiter and it's identical to ours,'' Krebs said in his first public speech since leaving the military in January. Krebs said military experts believe the Soviets simply bought a copy of space shuttle blueprints, then improved on the designs by adding engines to the external fuel tank, boosting the vehicle's lifting power. It was a faster, cheaper way of developing an orbiter, he said. ''The space shuttle was totally unclassified. Anyone could buy a set of plans. However, no one has been able to find the requisition,'' he said. Krebs, now research director for a Washington-based space education and lobbying group called High Frontier Inc., said his remarks were based on recently declassified information about Soviet space capabilities and contained no classified secrets. In Washington, DIA sources who spoke only on the condition that they not be identified said they knew nothing specifically about the Soviets getting shuttle blueprints. Krebs addressed a conference on space sponsored by the National Center for Policy Analysis, a conservative Dallas-based think tank. He said the Soviet Union is far ahead of the United States in development of space-based weapons capable of destroying satellites and ballistic missiles, having already developed two land-based laser beam weapons that can destroy satellites in low orbits. The weapons are in the testing stage, he said, and are not fully operational. ''The Soviets are trying to dominate space and, in fact, have already done so at low-altitude orbits and are working on the high-altitude orbits,'' Krebs said. The conference included a debate on President Reagan's ''Star Wars'' initiative to develop high-technology space defenses. John Pike, associate director for space activities for the federation, argued that high-technology defense systems involving orbiting ''killer satellites'' are too vulnerable to provide a reliable defense. ''If we proceed with the president's program, we will junk arms control and lead ourselves down what I and my associates think is a dangerous and uncertain road,'' Pike said. ''Strategic defense (in space) is a mirage.'' Reagan in March proposed a $50 billion program to develop space systems in the next decade. ''We're not out to find a niftier way to fight a war in space. We can prevent nuclear war by using space for defensive purposes,'' argued former Army Gen. Daniel Graham, president of High Frontier. Graham, saying no defense system would be perfect, estimated that a ''Star Wars'' defense could destroy 95 percent of Soviet missiles launched in a massive nuclear attack. ''We would go from mutually assured destruction to mutually assured survival,'' he said. ap-ny-06-09 0534EDT ********** ------------------------------ Date: 10 Jun 84 1826 PDT From: Ross Finlayson Subject: Here we go again To: space@MIT-MC.ARPA a274 1821 09 Jun 84 AM-Satellite Launch, 1st Ld - Writethru, a266,540 URGENT Eds: Rewrites throughout to note that NASA not attempting to salvage satellite, adds comments from NASA and ITSO, background on other failed satellites. No pickup. By HOWARD BENEDICT AP Aerospace Writer CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) - A $30 million international communications satellite tumbled out of control after it was launched over the Atlantic Ocean Saturday and NASA officials said there was no way to save it. The rocket, which was launched by a new ''stretched'' model of the Atlas-Centaur rocket, lifted on schedule at 7:03 p.m. EDT and everything went well for 23 minutes when suddenly the Centaur upper stage went out of control. The launch control center reported the Centaur and the attached satellite were tumbling. John Gibbs, Atlas-Centaur project manager, told a news conference an hour after the failure that officials don't know what went wrong. ''If we have this wrapped up in six weeks to two months we'll be doing well,'' Gibbs said, adding that the National Aeronautics and Space Administration would have to analyze data relayed from the rocket. The two attached vehicles were in an orbit ranging from 93 miles to 759 miles above the Earth, NASA officials reported. The intent was to place the satellite in a stationary orbit 22,300 miles high. Officials said the rocket and satellite eventually would burn up from friction because of the low orbit, but NASA could not estimate when. The failure occurred when the rocket was in contact with a tracking station on Ascension Island in the South Atlantic. It would take several days to fly the data tapes back from the island, NASA said. A review board has been set up to study the failure. The International Telecommunications Satellite Organization paid NASA $60 million to launch the satellite. With 12,000 voice channels and two color television channels, it was to have joined 15 other satellites currently serving the 108-nation organization. ''Obviously, we're disappointed about the failure,'' said Allan McCaskill, a representative of the international organization. He said the organization had insured the launch for $102 million with a consortium of insurance companies. The organization paid a $10 million premium for the insurance. It was the 62nd launch of an Atlas-Centaur rocket, but the first for the new lengthened model. The body of the first-stage Atlas had been extended 81 inches, allowing the booster to carry an additional 15 tons of fuel and to place an extra 500 pounds in orbit. The Atlas performed flawlessly during the 4 1/2 minutes it operated Saturday night. The Centaur separated successfully from the Atlas and the upper stage fired as planned for 10 minutes, then shut down and coasted for seven minutes. During this coast period that something went wrong and when it came time for the seven-minute refire of the Centaur rocket, the engine ignited but burned for only about four seconds before shutting down. At that point, NASA's launch control center reported the rocket and satellite were tumbling and there was no way to save them. It was the first satellite launch failure at Cape Canaveral since August 1977 when another Atlas-Centaur malfunctioned. Two communication satellites carried on the 10th shuttle flight in February were placed in wrong orbits when their rocket motors misfired. NASA is studying plans to retrieve and repair them in space. ap-ny-06-09 2121EDT ********** ------------------------------ Date: Fri 8 Jun 84 09:25:04-PDT From: mark thompson Subject: Nuclear Flames To: space-enthusiasts@MIT-MC.ARPA Phone: (213) 743-4800 I hate people who send messages complaining about the contents of various mailing lists, so i hate myself for doing this but... I would really appreciate it if the High Frontier people would BLT themselves over to ARMS-D (ARMS-D@MIT-MC). This would have two benefits: First, they would have enjoyed the bit about giving the nuclear arsenals fo the world to the Swiss, and second, i would save myself from having to follow it on two lists. Think of it as keeping nuclear weapons out of SPACE. -mark ps. DO people still know what a BLT is? Shame on DEC! ------- ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 12-Jun-84 0403 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #219 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 219 Today's Topics: Re: eclipse arranged instead of accidented? / disk at prime Re: radiation drag weapons ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 11 Jun 84 10:33:37 PDT (Monday) From: Lynn.es@XEROX.ARPA Subject: Re: eclipse arranged instead of accidented? / disk at prime focus To: Robert Elton Maas cc: Lynn.es@XEROX.ARPA, SPACE-ENTHUSIASTS@MIT-MC.ARPA "But if the technique is so workable, why are natural eclipses so important even now? Why don't we see wonderful artificially-occluded solar images from space every flight of STS, making natural eclipses moot?" In fact, earth-based observations of eclipses are getting less important for corona work. Especially since Solar Max satellite was repaired (it has a coronagraph with occulting disk on board). Why don't we see "wonderful artificially-occluded solar images from space"? I guess the press doesn't consider them wonderful enough to publish any more. There were some pictures in the Skylab days. And a few shots made it into print the times that comets were accidentally picked up in an orbiting coronagraph. There are several other reasons to observe eclipses though. One is timing the eclipse to check on the accuracy of our lunar orbit predictions, though this is becoming less important because of lunar laser ranging. Another result of timing is too determine the exact size of the sun, which some scientists think is changing. Another is checking general relativity by bending of light near the sun, though this can now be measured more accurately at radio wavelengths in broad daylight whenever a spacecraft goes behind the sun. There are yet more reasons to scientifically observe eclipses, but that's all I can think of at the moment. Perhaps the best reason to observe a total eclipse is to experience the sheer awe that comes over all life. That will remain even if all scientific experiments can be done elsetimes. /Don Lynn ------------------------------ Date: 11 Jun 1984 18:44-PDT From: dietz%USC-CSE@USC-ECL.ARPA To: LEE@SU-STAR.ARPA Cc: space@MIT-MC.ARPA Subject: Re: radiation drag The radiation drag I was referring to is known as the Poynting-Robertson effect. A particle moving through the radiation emitted by a star will reflect (or re-emit) more energy in the direction of motion (due to doppler shift), producing a VERY small retarding force. Over millions of years the particle will spiral into the star, at a rate proportional to the particle's cross-sectional area divided by its mass. dietz@usc-ecla ------------------------------ Date: 12 Jun 1984 03:37:03-EDT From: Dale.Amon at CMU-RI-FAS Subject: weapons As I was reading a recent Scientific American article noting the benefits of halting ASAT testing before the high tech weapons have been tested, thus insuring that no one can feel certain about their abilities, I couldn't help but laugh at the lack of imagination the poor earthworm showed. I can imagine a quite simple, cheap and effective ASAT system requiring no testing that a treaty could cover. Imagine if you will, 1995. A troop of astronauts salute sharply as they deploy on their one man OTV's, military issue 45's gleaming in their shoulder holsters... I posit that a 45 caliber bullet from 50 yards is a 100% effective ASAT. (I say 50 yards so that the astronaut will be relatively safe from the explosive booby traps that are already present on some russian satellites) And if the satellites are hardened, then upgrade to an old fashioned bazooka... But if you really must be high tech, then a TOW ought to do a nifty job... One must keep in mind that the cheapest, deadliest weapon in the world is man. ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 13-Jun-84 0403 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #220 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 220 Today's Topics: L-5 a communist front????? Re: circumstellar dust ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 12 June 1984 08:01-EDT From: Robert Elton Maas Subject: L-5 a communist front????? To: SPACE @ MIT-MC According to LeRouche (candidate for President), the L-5 society in cohorts with Graham's "High Frontier" is a communist front controlled by the KGB. (And according to Joe McCarthy ...) ------------------------------ Date: 12 June 1984 08:25-EDT From: Robert Elton Maas Subject: Re: circumstellar dust To: LEE @ SU-STAR cc: SPACE @ MIT-MC Date: 8 Jun 1984 2249-PDT From: LEE at SU-STAR Could you explain the radiation drag mechanism?. Here's my quick attempt: Radiation is doppler-shifted depending on direction of motion of particle. The difference of energy&momentum between the front and back of the particle causes it to slow down in its orbit, causing it to fall into the object it is orbiting (Vega in this case). For average particles area is proportioal to diameter squared whereas mass to diameter cubed, and both lightpressure and gravity are proportional to distance-from-star to the minus 2 power, so very tiny particles have more area*lightpressure than mass*gravity, thus are thrown out to deep space by lightpressure even if not orbiting, but slightly-larger particles have more mass*gravity than area*lightpressure, so they eventually fall inward after they stop orbiting. Very large particles take a very long time before they significantly slow down orbiting, so in their case lightpressure vs gravity is moot. But tiny and medium-small particles are removed from orbit, to deep space and into the star respectively, after just a short time in the life of a star. ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 14-Jun-84 0406 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #221 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 221 Today's Topics: re: space marines as ASATs l-5 a communist front?!?!?! IRAS Dyson spheres? Rocket propulsion question LaDouche High Frontier Atlas/Centaur Failure ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 12 Jun 1984 1043-EDT From: John Redford To: space at MC cc: redford at SHORTY Subject: re: space marines as ASATs Message-ID: <"MS10(2124)+GLXLIB1(1136)" 12022871028.30.583.6487 at DEC-MARLBORO> Dale.Amon is not impressed by anti-ASAT advocates: "As I was reading a recent Scientific American article noting the benefits of halting ASAT testing before the high tech weapons have been tested, thus insuring that no one can feel certain about their abilities, I couldn't help but laugh at the lack of imagination the poor earthworm showed." He suggests that space marines could just go out and shoot satellites if we wanted to destroy them. The article was co-written by Richard Garwin, an IBM Fellow at the Watson Research Center. He has been a key part of the debate over the ABM, the cruise missile, and the Trident deployments. He is not someone I would describe as an unimaginative earthworm. Destroying a satellite is an act of war. If you are to derive any benefit from it at all you have to destroy most of them at once. The Russians are not going to sit on their hands while you fly from one satellite to another plugging them with your revolver. They will move their satellites, destroy your manned orbital base, or maybe just get down to the business of World War III. Destroying several hundred satellites within the course of a few minutes is not something marines are likely to be able to do. They won't have the time to get more than one apiece, and they won't have the manpower to get them all at once. This whole ASAT thing seems crazed to me. We rely on satellites for a lot of things, and yet by threatening the Russians we make certain that our own will be threatened. It's disastrous, of course, from an arms control point of view, but it's bad even from a straight military point of view as well. Someone at Space Command is out of control. John Redford DEC-Hudson ------------------------------ Date: 13 Jun 1984 08:19:06-EDT From: sde@Mitre-Bedford To: Space@mit-mc Subject: l-5 a communist front?!?!?! Cc: sde@Mitre-Bedford Actually, the KGB definitely made attempts at penetrating L-5 &/or compromising members. This is not a surmise; I can name names. That is in addition to the amusing fact that the KGB chief of station quietly joined a couple of years ago (according to the FBI); anyone can join by paying $20. But the idea that L-5, whose honchos include(d) Sen. Goldwater, be a communist front is, of course, the sort of marvelously preposterous stuff to paste on one's office door. Ad Astra, sde@mitre-bedford ------------------------------ Date: Wednesday, 13 June 1984 18:30:40 EDT From: Hans.Moravec@cmu-ri-rover.arpa To: space@mit-mc.arpa Subject: IRAS Dyson spheres? Message-ID: <1984.6.13.22.29.20.Hans.Moravec@cmu-ri-rover.arpa> n085 1719 12 Jun 84 BC-PLANETS By WALTER SULLIVAN c.1984 N.Y. Times News Service BALTIMORE - Newly analyzed infrared emissions indicate that as many as 40 relatively close stars are enveloped in clouds that it is thought will ultimately condense and form planets. The findings were reported Tuesday by Dr. Hartmut H. Aumann of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., at a meeting of the American Astronomical Society. Using a catalogue of 2,000 stars within 80 light-years of Earth, he studied the data recorded last year by the Infrared Astronomical Satellite, or IRAS, in search of more stars that, like Vega and Fomalhaut, might show evidence of such clouds glowing at infrared wavelengths. The 40 stars he so identified constitute an estimated 10 to 20 percent of the 2,000 cataloged stars that are relatively similar to the sun in terms of luminosity, mass and lifetime. Last year, IRAS found Vega and Fomalhaut to be surrounded by material similar to that from which it is assumed planets are formed. However, those two stars are relatively hot, luminous, large and young, with a projected lifetime of only a few million years. The 40 stars that Aumann said ''are being orbited by solid material'' are smaller but with lifetimes of billions of years, which is long enough for higher forms of life to evolve. The observations call to mind the infrared emissions predicted for the so-called Dyson civilizations according to a theory that proposed a completely different source for such emissions. In 1960, Freeman Dyson of the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton, N.J., suggested that a highly advanced civilization, driven by population pressure, would intentionally dismantle planets in orbit around its parent star and re-assemble them into a cloud of artificial, eventually inhabitable planets. These planets would then capture all, or most, of the star's radiated energy. The star would be largely hidden from distant observers, but such a cloud of planets would glow at the infrared wavelengths typical of low-temperature material. It was the infrared glow that prompted discussion of the Dyson theory. No one at Tuesday's meeting was arguing that the nearby stars were, in fact, such civilizations, but Frank D. Drake, of Cornell University, said such a possibility could not be ruled out. It was Drake who in 1959 first turned a radio telescope toward two nearby stars in search of artificial signals from space. One of the two stars, Epsilon Eridani, is among the 40 now identified as strong emitters of infrared radiation. Aumann said the infrared emissions were too strong to have emanated from Dyson-type planets, but Drake disagreed. He said a ''smart'' civilization would build its planets farther from the parent star than Earth's orbit is from the Sun but would keep one side continuously facing the star, allowing for a mild climate on that side. The cold backside, he said, would emit radiation much like that recorded by IRAS. The optimistic mood of a decade ago among searchers for life on other worlds has given way, however, to a suspicion that if technological civilizations exist, they are more distant than the nearest stars. Among other IRAS observations reported on Tuesday was the finding that some galaxies scattered throughout the universe are being powered by an enormous and baffling energy source. The galaxies are so dim optically that the existence of many of them was unknown until powerful telescopes were turned to those directions where IRAS had detected pointlike sources of emission. When photographed optically, many of these galaxies are seen to be greatly distorted or to be in such close contact with another galaxy as to suggest that they are, or have been, in collisions. One suggestion is that such collisions of galactic clouds produce bursts of star formation perhaps at rates higher than one per day, producing the enormous infrared emissions. The ''star burst'' hypothesis and other explanations, however, have been challenged on some ground. As Dr. Frank J. Low of the University of Arizona, put it: ''We are on the trail of something very fundamental, but we don't know what it is.'' ------------------------------ Date: 13 Jun 1984 14:37-EST From: David.Smith@CMU-CS-IUS.ARPA Subject: Rocket propulsion question To: Space@mc Message-Id: <455999826/drs@CMU-CS-IUS> Can someone answer the following question, which has bothered me for a long time: Why does a rocket engine produce more thrust in space than in the atmosphere? The stock answer is that thrust is proportional to exhaust velocity, and air drag reduces exhaust velocity. But it seems to me that this drag (back pressure) should cause a rise in chamber pressure, thus increasing thrust. Thrust is produced by chamber pressure, which works over a larger surface area at the front of the chamber than at the back (due to the exhaust hole). The rearwards pressure at the exhaust hole is occupied by accelerating the exhaust gas out through the hole, rather than by pushing on engine structure. If some of this rearward force is countered by backpressure from air not attached to the rocket, it shouldn't drag on the rocket. But in inhibiting escape of gases, the backpressure should increase chamber pressure, and hence, thrust. Suppose we replace the forward chamber wall by the base of a rifle bullet, and the air by a closed breech. This combination results in a higher bullet velocity than if the breech were open to allow maximum exhaust velocity of the burnt powder with respect to the bullet. Where is the flaw in this reasoning? David Smith @ cmu-cs-ius.arpa ------------------------------ Date: 13 Jun 1984 21:46:00-EDT From: Dale.Amon at CMU-RI-FAS Subject: LaDouche If anybody got the latest Larouche show on tape, quite a number of us in L5 would be interested in getting copies of it. I mean what better publicity can you get than to be panned by LaDouchebag? To be classed right up there with Henry Kissenger? The sad part is, this must mean we're establishment now! Dale Amon Pres Pgh L5 & Spacepac Chapters Coordinator ------------------------------ Date: 12 Jun 84 10:34:08-PDT (Tue) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: hplabs!hao!ames-lm!al @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: High Frontier I received a query as to what papers have been pulled from conferences by DOD recently. The information comes from Aviation Week within the last few months. Unfortunately I don't have time to go dig the details out, but I believe they were mostly information technology papers. Note that cryptologists submit their papers to pre-censorship even when they are not DOD funded. This is suposedly voluntary. I have an excercise for those who think Star Wars can protect us. 1. Estimate the number of atomic explosions the U.S. can absorb. 2. Divide by 8,000 (approximate number of Soviet warheads that can reach the U.S.) to get the percentage success required. 3. Realize that ICBM's take about a half hour and submarine missles as little as 10 seconds to reach U.S. cities. 4. Figure out how to test star wars sufficiently to have confidence in success. If, after going through the above, you still believe that star wars can protect the U.S. population against a determined attack by the Soviet Union I have several bridges near here I'd like to sell you. A good deal, only $1 trillion in OEM quantities. ------------------------------ Date: 12 Jun 84 6:28:17-PDT (Tue) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: hplabs!hpda!fortune!amd70!decwrl!dec-rhea!dec-dvinci!fisher @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: Atlas/Centaur Failure Since the failure was apparently in the Centaur, and not the newly stretched Atlas, I wonder how, if at all, the Shuttle-based version of the Centaur will be affected. I hope that Galileo won't delayed again! Are there any other civilian projects depending on the Shuttle Centaur? The Venus orbiter? Burns UUCP: ... {decvax|allegra|ucbvax}!decwrl!rhea!dvinci!fisher ARPA: decwrl!rhea!dvinci!fisher@{Berkeley | SU-Shasta} ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 15-Jun-84 0406 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #222 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 222 Today's Topics: Rocket thrust high.frontier Re: Infra-red emmision from circumstella Finding smuggled nukes Stellar info ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu 14 Jun 84 13:37:41-EDT From: JHEIMANN@BBNA.ARPA Subject: Rocket thrust To: space@MIT-MC.ARPA cc: jheimann@BBNA.ARPA The easiest way to think about rocket thrust is not in terms of pressure against the exhaust cavity, but rather in terms of conservation of momentum in the system consisting of rocket and expelled propellant. One can always find a reference frame in which the center of mass of a system of moving objects is stationary. So suppose we have a rocket floating in front of us somewhere out in space, its engine dormant. The momentum of the system, with respect to our frame of reference, is zero. If the engine is ignited, propellent is ejected rearward at high velocity, carrying with it some of the mass of the original system. For momentum to be conserved, the remaining mass of system - namely the rocket and unexpelled propellant - must move in the opposite direction with a velocity such that the magnitude of the momentum of the remaining mass equals that of the ejected propellant. The thrust produced by an engine thus depends on the amount of momentum per second it can transfer to the exhaust gasses (recall the equation for force: F=dp/dt), and hence on both the amount of mass per second that is ejected in the exhaust gas and the velocity of that gas. So if the velocity of exhaust gasses is slowed by air friction, then the amount of momentum transfered to this gas is reduced, and thrust is decreased. John ------------------------------ Date: 12 Jun 84 3:28:55-PDT (Tue) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: pur-ee!CS-Mordred!Pucc-H.Physics.piner @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: high.frontier Well, time to enter the debate. First let me summarize the debate. It seems to go back and forth something like this; Pro: "Look at this neat defense system. Let's build it." Con: "It won't work. Forget it." Pro: "Well, it will be expensive, and it has some bugs. But we can make it work." Con: "Well, you're right, it can be made to work in theory. But there are too many counter measures". Pro: "Ok, so it isn't perfect, but isn't it better to take out some of the warheads than to let them all land." Con: "It is an escalation of the arms race. It will cost a lot of money and will just make things worse." Pro: "But I would rather have a defensive arms race than an offensive arms race." Con: "It's worse" Pro: "Better!" Con: "WORSE!" ------------------------------ Date: 12 Jun 84 20:44:42-PDT (Tue) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: decvax!cca!ima!haddock!stevel @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: Re: Infra-red emmision from circumstella Does anybody have a figure on how much matter, number of eath equivlants seems to be the measurment, is circling our sun? Steve Ludlum, decvax!yale-co!ima!stevel, {ihnp4!cbosgd}!ima!stevel ------------------------------ Date: 12 Jun 84 21:20:12-PDT (Tue) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: decvax!cca!ima!ism780!chris @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: Finding smuggled nukes < here they come, over the pole! Launch ALL our stuff > I have seen two references in this news group that have puzzled me. They both claimed that finding nuclear weapons was child's play once the city they were in was located. Assuming we don't have Doc Smith spy rays, how is this done? I can think of two or three ways, but none of them work from space, as one mention suggested. The methods are: (1) "Sniffer" equipment picks up the organic molecules exuded by the conventional explosives. Since the charges used to compress/accelerate the critical mass are nitrated compounds (dynamite or nitro starch) they will have lots volatiles floating around. This is how terrorist stuff is often found. However this is very short range, and will find every cache of explosives in the city. They would need lots of devices to cover a big area like LA or NY in anything under weeks. (2) Radiation detectors. These would pick up the characteristic emissions of fissionable materials. This would drop the number of false alarms (can you imagine searching every smoke detector and hospital cobalt source?) but would again be short range. (3) Top Psychics? The Irrational Inquirer uses these all the time to predict future events. I can just see Karnac (Johnny Carson) putting the envelope to his head and saying something like: "Grand central station, locker 314159, friday noon", and the question is, "Where is the device, and when will it go off?". Levity aside, can someone drop me a hint as to how this is actually done? I'd like to build one for myself :-) chris decvax!vortex!ism780!chris decvax!cca!ima!ism780!chris ------------------------------ Date: 11 Jun 84 13:55:39-PDT (Mon) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: ucbcad!tektronix!orca!iddic!rickc @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: Stellar info Netters: A recent request for an equation for the spiral galaxy renewed my interest in stars. Does anyone know of databases (position, name, etc.) available of stars? Obviously, I mean in machine readable form, hopefully in net available form. Thanks, Rick Coates tektronix!iddic!rickc ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 16-Jun-84 0406 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #223 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 223 Today's Topics: thrust in the atmosphere Larouche and Space Rocket thrust Re: Rocket thrust Re: stellar info New Address Re: Rocket thrust SHUTTLE VIDEO ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 15 Jun 84 10:28:03 EDT From: Louis Steinberg Subject: thrust in the atmosphere To: space@MIT-MC.ARPA From: JHEIMANN@BBNA.ARPA So if the velocity of exhaust gasses is slowed by air friction, then the amount of momentum transfered to this gas is reduced, and thrust is decreased. But if you are considering the momentum transfered to the air by the exhaust gasses (presumably after they leave the nozzle), then you must include the momentum of the air in your conservation-of-momentum calculations. I think the simplest way to think about it is to consider the momentum of the exhaust gas as it leaves the nozzle. This depends on the velocity and mass of the gas, as was explained. Assume in both cases that the same amount of fuel is pumped into the reaction chamber and that essentially all the fuel reacts. Then you have the same mass of exhaust gass to get rid of through the nozzle in either case. So, what about the velocity? As the original question points out, the pressure in the reaction chamber will be higher in the atmosphere. Thus the exhaust gas will be more dense. (I assume density in the nozzle depends at least partly on density at either end of the nozzle.) Since we are dumping the same amount of mass out the nozzle per unit time, and the mass is more dense, it doesn't have to move as fast. (Imagine you want 5 cars per minute to go past some point on the highway. If the cars are closer together (more dense) they have to be going slower to achieve this rate.) Thus, mass is constant and velocity is lower so momentum is lower. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 14 Jun 84 21:51 MST From: Kevin Kenny Subject: Larouche and Space To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC.ARPA Message-ID: <840615045142.051752@HIS-PHOENIX-MULTICS.ARPA> I have some LaRouche campaign literature that states that the entire High Frontier proposal stems directly from the ``psychosexual impotance (sic) of General Danny Graham''. Not only are the Commies behind it, the perverts ar for it too! There was a half-hour Larouche political announcement on the tube a couple of nights ago here in Phoenix. Many of the statements he made had milder languale dubbed over... totally out of sync. The program ended with a full minute and a half of dead air after the credits; there wasn't enough tape for the full half-hour shot. The video quality was about that of a mediocre home recorder. Well, it's a free country; anyone can announce candidacy, even if he is totally bonkers. I don't know anyone who's for him, and very few who even take him seriously. Which is a problem... we've voted kooks into office before. (the opinions voiced in this message are not necessarily those of anyone, including its author.) /k**2 (Kenny%PCO @ CISL) ------------------------------ Date: 15 Jun 1984 12:29-EST From: David.Smith@CMU-CS-IUS.ARPA Subject: Rocket thrust To: space@mc Cc: JHEIMANN@BBNA.ARPA Message-Id: <456164969/drs@CMU-CS-IUS> The easiest way to think about rocket thrust is not in terms of pressure against the exhaust cavity, but rather in terms of conservation of momentum in the system consisting of rocket and expelled propellant. It may be easier to think about it that way, but I still would like to know the flaw in my reasoning. But OK, let's look at it in terms of conservation of momentum. In the atmosphere, the reaction mass is not just the products of combustion, but also the air entrained by the exhaust plume. The backpressure seen by the engine is due to the exhaust pushing on the air and accelerating it backwards. So the decreased exhaust velocity should be compensated by increased reaction mass. In the rifle analogy, the reaction mass comprises not just the combustion products, but also the rifle and the person holding the rifle. There is a limit to the rate of expansion of combustion products, even if uncontained in space. A rifle ensures that most of that rate gets transferred to the bullet. A rocket lets most of it get away, since the exhaust is only confined by its own inertia. A rocket in the atmosphere gets a little bit of assistance in confining the exhaust. David Smith ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 15 Jun 84 15:08:42 EDT From: John Heimann Subject: Re: Rocket thrust To: David.Smith@cmu-cs-ius.arpa Cc: space@mit-mc.arpa, jheimann@BBNCCY.ARPA The bullet/rocket analogy is specious because in fact the bullet is part of the material which is being ejected from the rifle; i.e. is analoous to the exhaust gasses, not the rocket. It is the rifle that is analogous to the rocket. If one were to have a rocket engine with a combustion chamber that was open at the front, analogous to an open breech rifle, then we would expect the rocket engine to have far less thrust (if any at all) than a closed chamber engine. Alternatively, as we would expect a bullet fired from a gun in space to have a higher velocity than one fired in the atmosphere since there would be no viscous drag on the bullet, and hence to impart a greater impulse to the rifle, so we would expect a rocket in space to eject its exhaust gasses at a higher rate than in the atmosphere and hence have greater thrust. Another way to look at it: the exhaust gasses escape rearward at a rate which is dependant on the difference in pressure between the engine throat and the end of the exhaust nozzle. The atmospheric "backpressure" that you refer to is just atmospheric pressure on the rear of the rocket, which is cancelled out by atmospheric pressure on the front of the rocket. At every moment I experience something like 5000 pounds of force on my back due to atmospheric pressure, yet I don't accelerate forward since there also happens to be the same force on my chest. John ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 15 Jun 84 14:15:49 CDT From: Mike Caplinger Subject: Re: stellar info To: space@mit-mc.ARPA Message-Id: When I asked this question a while back I got two pieces of info; SKYMAP 4.0 from Wayne H. Warren Jr. Code 601 < this code is very important or they will lose your letter> Goddard Space Flight Center Greenbelt, Maryland 20771 (301) 344-6695 and "I believe one can get a copy of the SAO (a revised version at that) on a 9-track tape from: Dr. Wayne Warren, Astronomical Data Center, National Space Science Data Center, Goddard Space Flight Center Code 601, Greenbelt, MD 20771, 301-344-8310." Don't know whether either or both phone numbers are right. SKYMAP is newer and larger, I think. - Mike ------------------------------ Date: 15 Jun 1984 16:40:01-EDT (Friday) From: R. Bhaskar To: space-enthusiasts@mit-mc.arpa Subject: New Address CC: bhaskar.yktvmx%ibm-sj.csnet@csnet-relay.arpa I have a new address, herewith: BHASKAR.YKTVMX@IBM My old address was: BHASKAR@CMU_CS_A Thank you for changing it on your books. R. Bhaskar ------------------------------ Date: 15 Jun 1984 16:05-EST From: David.Smith@CMU-CS-IUS.ARPA Subject: Re: Rocket thrust To: John Heimann Cc: Space@mc Message-Id: <456177948/drs@CMU-CS-IUS> The bullet/rocket analogy is specious because in fact the bullet is part of the material which is being ejected from the rifle; i.e. is analogous to the exhaust gasses, not the rocket. It is the rifle that is analogous to the rocket. I am not yet convinced that the analogy is specious. The gases push laterally on the sides of the barrel, as on the sides of the rocket. To a first approximation, it doesn't matter whether the barrel is fixed to the breech or travels with the bullet (or it wouldn't if the barrel had zero weight but retained it strength). The gases push equally on both bullet and breech, and it doesn't matter which one you consider to be engine and which exhaust. But suppose we go ahead and consider the rifle to correspond to the engine. Which way will you get a bigger kick in the shoulder? 1. Fire the charge without a bullet, producing maximal exhaust velocity. 2. Obstruct exit of the exhaust by forcing it to drive a bullet out. Alternatively, as we would expect a bullet fired from a gun in space to have a higher velocity than one fired in the atmosphere since there would be no viscous drag on the bullet, and hence to impart a greater impulse to the rifle, ... To the extent that the air being accelerated ahead of the bullet drags on the barrel, OK. But besides that (and it's not applicable to the rocket anyway), I'll still argue that it does not impart greater impulse in space, even though the bullet velocity is higher. At every moment I experience something like 5000 pounds of force on my back due to atmospheric pressure, yet I don't accelerate forward since there also happens to be the same force on my chest. You would if you applied pressure to the air on one side which was not matched on the other. The rocket exhaust does this. David Smith ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 14 Jun 84 20:50 PDT From: ANDERSON.ES@XEROX.ARPA Subject: SHUTTLE VIDEO To: Space@MIT-MC.ARPA, XeroxSpace^.PA@XEROX.ARPA cc: Anderson.ES@XEROX.ARPA Reply-To: Anderson.ES@XEROX.ARPA I have some further information for anyone who is interested in receiving the Space Shuttle video. You should also pass this information on to your local cable company if you would like them to rebroadcast the video to their customers. I think many cable operators would be interested if they knew there was an interest and if they knew how to do it. Many of the cable company lab engineers are surely space enthusiasts - it goes with the territory. So please send them letters or phone them. I know of at least 5 cable companies accross the U.S. that are now planning to rebroadcast the next shuttle video to their customers. Mission 41-D liftoff is currently scheduled for June 25, 1984 at 0843 EDT. To receive the shuttle video, take a regular or portable SVR (Sattelite Video Receiver) and point it at SATCOM1R. Monitor Transponder #13 and tune to the upper half of the bandpass for the video (the lower half of the bandpass is data). That's all there is to it. I've been told you can also call the Kennedy Space Center for information, as they may change the sattelite frequency. Still waiting for SBN (Space Broadcasting Network). Craig Anderson Xerox Corp. 213-536-7299 ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 17-Jun-84 0404 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #224 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 224 Today's Topics: Can I buy a space suit (not necessarily pressurized)? Re: l-5 a communist front?!?!?! Re: LaDouche Rocket thrust ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 14 Jun 84 23:01:08-PDT (Thu) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: hplabs!hao!seismo!cmcl2!floyd!clyde!watmath!utzoo!utcsrgv!peterr @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: Can I buy a space suit (not necessarily pressurized)? About 10 years ago, I read an article in Popular Science about some "long underwear" (both vest and pants) with tubing woven into the fabric. In cold climates, one pumps hot water through the tubing; in hot climates, you keep ice in the reservoir, letting it melt to provide chilled water to pump through the tubing. A small battery operated pump does the pumping. It was claimed that this was an offshoot of space-suit technology. Also in the dim recesses of my memory is seeing an Omni cover that mentioned "environmental clothing" that would, among other things, help to regulate one's temperature. As I suffer quite a lot in the current Toronto heat and humidity, I'm interested in commercially available clothing of this short. I wouldn't even mind carrying around a reservoir of ice that much! So, if you know of such clothing, please let me know. I'll summarize if there are any responses. Thanks in advance, peter rowley, University of Toronto Department of C.S., Ontario Canada M5S 1A4 UUCP {linus ihnp4 allegra floyd utzoo cornell decwrl uw-beaver}!utcsrgv!peterr CSNet peterr@toronto ------------------------------ Date: 14 Jun 84 11:27:04-PDT (Thu) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: hplabs!hao!ames-lm!al @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: Re: l-5 a communist front?!?!?! Anyone who attended the recent L5 conference in San Francisco knows that L5 is virulently anti-communist and has a strong dislike for Russia, in spite of Russia's impressive space achievements. I'm no fan of the Russian government myself but I found the anti-Soviet malarky excessive. ------------------------------ Date: 14 Jun 84 15:10:47-PDT (Thu) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: hplabs!hao!seismo!uwvax!myers @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: Re: LaDouche >If anybody got the latest Larouche show on tape, quite a number of us in L5 >would be interested in getting copies of it. I mean what better publicity >can you get than to be panned by LaDouchebag? To be classed right up there >with Henry Kissenger? > >The sad part is, this must mean we're establishment now! > > Dale Amon > Pres Pgh L5 & > Spacepac Chapters Coordinator The sad part is that LaRouche is a very contradictory phenomenon. Many of his facts are right, but he draws the wrong conclusions (problems with the international banking system); much of what he attacks deserves attack (Kissenger (sic) and L5), but he employs the Big Lie to achieve his own ends. Much of what he supports is certain suicide for the world (massive arms build-up and Beam-the-Bomb proposals), yet many of his stated goals are noble and accurate (his contention that the world has the potential to eliminate hunger). Since this is net.space, and Dale Amon is an L5 type, let me get to the point. Dale (the pot (only a metaphor, no implications about body shape or drug consumption intended)) is calling LaDouche (an excellent name! (the kettle)) black, when they both support escalating an arms race in space. As Freeman Dyson has pointed out, a space-based defense system is not a priori a bad thing -- only in certain historical circumstances. He correctly argues that offensive weapons must be controlled first, followed by building a defensive system (if it's determined to be worth the investment of scarce natural and human resources). Going ahead full-steam with the development of Beam-the-Bomb schemes now will only fuel both an offensive and defensive arms race -- but it *will* keep gadgety scientists searching for a form of immortality happy. -- Jeff Myers ARPA: myers@wisc-rsch.arpa uucp: ..{seismo, ihnp4}!wisc-rsch!myers P.S. For those of you interested in Freeman Dyson's argument, consult his four-part article which appeared in *The New Yorker* earlier this year. JDM ------------------------------ Date: 16 June 1984 17:50-EDT From: Robert Elton Maas Subject: Rocket thrust To: JHEIMANN @ BBNA cc: SPACE @ MIT-MC Your argument has a serious flaw. If exhaust gas is slowed by frictin with air, it's transferring momentum to the air it slides against, thus total momentum isn't decreased by this friction. In fact if the chemical reaction in the engine resists this backpressure by pushing harder on the exhaust gas to try to foce them to keep their original velocity, the total momentum of the exhaust&FrictionnedAir will be greater. ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 19-Jun-84 0406 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #225 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 225 Today's Topics: Nuke detectors machine readable star catalogs Re: Rocket thrust You gotta be kidding... Countdown Test Successful Re: SPACE Digest V4 #224 Can you trust L5 members? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 17 Jun 1984 01:43:40-EDT From: Dale.Amon at CMU-RI-FAS Subject: Nuke detectors I'm not sure of the exact answer, but I would refer people to an article in Science some months back disussing the release of radioactive pellets in a Mexican junk yard. It was clearly stated stated that the US had offered Mexico (and been refused) the service of finding the remaining pellets, and I believe they stated that it could be done from the air. If they can do this for the tiny (albiet VERY hot) pellets, I'm quite sure they can do it for the case of several kilo's of fissionables in a bomb. ASATS REVISITED: I am not necessarily advocating 'space marines': I'm simply pointing out that the concept of an ASAT treaty is utterly worthless when we have some odd thousands of people living in space. Satellites have had a temporary respite, but space is now becoming a part of the human sphere. Satellites in 10 or 20 years will have no more security than a spy plane/ship or ground installation. Believing otherwise is dangerously fanciful. One must learn to differentiate between what one wishes to be true, and what is true; any other path is folly. I might add that the Soviets tried to claim that the shuttle was a weapon because it had the potential to interfere with their satellites. Sure we can ban the cute little air launched ASAT. But it DOESN'T DO A DAMN BIT OF GOOD. The electronics and computer revolutions, not to mention the inevitable inhabitation of space will make an ASAT trivial, just as the newly tested anti-missile worked flawlessly on its first test. It all gets easier and easier, and does so at an ACCELERATING pace. My hope is for our grandchildren, that in exploring the solar system, they will come to find the dangers of our era difficult to comprehend. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 18 Jun 84 16:16:57 EDT From: Dick Koolish Subject: machine readable star catalogs To: space@mit-mc Machine readable star catalogs can be gotten from the Naval Observatory in Washington. You can write to them and ask for a circular that describes all of the available catalogs. Dick Koolish@bbn ------------------------------ Date: 18 Jun 1984 12:13-EST From: David.Smith@CMU-CS-IUS.ARPA Subject: Re: Rocket thrust To: space@mc Message-Id: <456423190/drs@CMU-CS-IUS> Let's look at the impulse (momentum transfer) derived from burning a small parcel of fuel/oxidizer. The parcel has mass m and chemical energy E (which we assume is used with perfect efficiency). Equate the chemical energy to the kinetic energy of the parcel as it exits the engine (in the frame of the rocket). This gives us the exhaust velocity, v = sqrt( 2E/m ). The impulse to the engine is the same as the momentum imparted to the exhaust: I = mv = sqrt( 2mE ) >From these equations, it is clear that throwing extra inert mass into the engine (raising m without raising E) will lower the exhaust velocity, while increasing impulse (and thrust with it). This is the reason that turbofans (and turboprops) are more fuel-efficient than turbojets, at least up to the speed at which shock waves form on the blades. Suppose that m is raised not by dumping mass into the chamber, but by putting the rocket into the atmosphere and letting the exhaust entrain the air. More thrust, no? Of course, if the vehicle has to carry the extra mass to the point of use, it would be better to have it in the form of propellant, so that E is also raised. Carrying dead mass is pretty expensive. And in space, you have to carry your dead mass with you. David Smith P.S. As I stated in my original message, rockets really do generate more thrust in space than in the atmosphere. Nasa has stated this, and they ought to know, having operated engines in both places. I am still hoping that someone can either show the flaw in my reasoning or tell what other effects are operating. Perhaps energy is lost to sideways turbulence? DRS ------------------------------ Date: 17 Jun 1984 21:06:45-EDT From: Dale.Amon at CMU-RI-FAS Subject: You gotta be kidding... Mr. Myers: I found your remarks insulting to both myself and the L5 Society, and indicative of zero knowledge of the society. 1) The L5 Society has no stand whatsover on BMD of any kind. It is strictly a one issue organization, and that issue is building a space based civilization. BMD is too divisive an issue for an organization as diverse as L5. 2) I PERSONALLY support BMD. 3) I find it highly insulting to be in any way shape or form classed with a neo-nazi like LaRouche. (ie pot calling kettle) 4) The best description of the 'average' L5 member's political stand is probably anarchy. This comfortably allows people of any persuasion, left, right or none-of-the-above to coexist with the organization. By political party affiliation, I would guess that the percentages of Republicans/Democrats/Libertarians are roughly equal. I can't possibly imagine how you could class our organization with Larouche. And by the way, Freeman Dyson has served on our board of directors... I might also add that John Glenn, Don Fuqua, Newt Gingritch, Barry Goldwater, and many others of good reputation have associated their name with us. We of the L5 have worked our tails off to get the space station, and we have won, although it is just the first of many battles. Next comes the lunar mining base. I'd like to ask you, Mr. Myers, what have YOU done? Dale M. Amon ------------------------------ Date: 14 Jun 84 20:13:24-PDT (Thu) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: hplabs!hao!seismo!cmcl2!floyd!clyde!burl!ulysses!allegra!alice!alb @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: Countdown Test Successful The Discovery and her crew today sailed through a mock countdown today. The only problem was a minor software glitch that will have no bearing on the launch. ------------------------------ Date: 18 Jun 84 20:48:11 EDT From: JoSH Subject: Re: SPACE Digest V4 #224 To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC.ARPA I think the easiest way to understand why a rocket works better in space is the following simple description of how a rocket works. Consider a box one cubic inch in size. It is in a vacuum but contains air at 100 psi. Thus there is a force of 100 lbs on the inside of each face of the box. +------------+ | ^ | | 100# | |<100# 100#>| (actual size) | 100# | | V | +------------+ Since the forces are equal and opposite, there is no net force on the box. Now remove the bottom of the box. The upward force on the top is now unbalanced (as long as you can keep the pressure at 100 psi...), and the box experiences a net upward 100 lbs force: +------------+ | ^ | | 100# | |<100# 100#>| (actual size) | 0# | | V | Now assume the box is in an atmosphere of 15 psi. The internal pressure is the same but now the unbalanced force on the top is only 85 lbs: 15# V +------------+ | ^ | 15# > | 100# | < 15# |<100# 100#>| (actual size) | 0# | | V | Notice that you can't write 15# up at the bottom *because there is no bottom*. You can burn more fuel (or whatever) to raise the chamber pressure to 115 psi, but that's equivalent to the same thing: it's less efficient in an atmosphere. --JoSH ------- ------------------------------ Date: 17 Jun 84 14:15:22-PDT (Sun) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: hplabs!ames-lm!eugene @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: Can you trust L5 members? In response to Al Globius (also where I work): Ah, yes, but Al: Just think a second, suppose you were a Rooskie spy, how vould you inflitrate the USA? As a loyal Cummunist? NO! Pose as von of them! Take the position they least expect! Perhaps we of the USGovt. should refrain from writing on this net. Who knows who reads this? We have to be careful (Preserve that bodily essence)...... Think about it....... --eugene miya retneC hcraeseR semA ASAN ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 20-Jun-84 0405 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #226 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 226 Today's Topics: L-5 orientation Re: ASAT treaties Poynting Robertson Effect Rocket engines Scientists for a Manned Space Station thanks for help LaRouche is bad news ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 19 Jun 1984 08:55:33-EDT From: sde@Mitre-Bedford To: Dale.Amon@cmu-ri-fas Subject: L-5 orientation Cc: space@mit-mc Kudos to u for ur response to Jeff Myers' remarks. ------------------------------ Date: 19 Jun 1984 1115-EDT From: John Redford To: space-enthusiasts at MC cc: redford at SHORTY Subject: Re: ASAT treaties Message-ID: <"MS10(2124)+GLXLIB1(1136)" 12024711861.15.583.7659 at DEC-MARLBORO> As Dale.Amon points out, ASAT weapons are becoming easier and easier to build. As guidance technology improves it will take a very small and cheap missile to take out a satellite. Ultimately all you will need is a rock with a chip and a thruster on it. However, I can't agree with his conclusion that ASAT treaties are therefore pointless. Whatever one can imagine for future ASAT technology, the fact is that present American ASATs are unreliable because they are untested, and present Russian ASATs are unreliable and inadequate. Even if this situation is completely different twenty years from now, we can still give ourselves twenty years of respite by negotiating treaties now. The treaties may fail in the long run, but the long run is unpredictable anyhow. And, as Keynes said, "In the long run, gentlemen, we are all dead." Nor is it inevitable that ASAT weapons will be built. In the course of the nuclear arms race we have already seen systems that could have been built but weren't. Does anyone out there remember FOBS, the Fractional Orbital Bombardment System? This was a project in the sixties to lob bombs over the South Pole instead of the North. That way the Russians would have to aim their early warning systems at every point of the compass. It would not have been all that hard to do, and it would have caused them substantial expense and confusion, but it was ultimately decided that it did not really affect the balance of terror. Or how about the silo on the sea floor idea? The bottom of the ocean is a great place to put missile silos since they have a couple of miles of water shielding them from nuclear attack. However it was forbidden by the 1963 Test Ban Treaty and no one has thought it worth while to pursue since. Well, ASATs would cause expense and confusion but like FOBS they would not give a decisive advantage. The bottom line is WE DON'T HAVE TO DO IT, SO LET'S NOT. At worst we can keep our satellites safe for another decade or two. At best we can keep space an arena of peaceful competition like Antarctica. John Redford DEC-Hudson -------- ------------------------------ Date: 17 Jun 1984 14:33-EDT From: cu-arpa.dietz@Cornell.ARPA Subject: Poynting Robertson Effect To: space@mit-mc Reply-To: dietz@usc-ecla Message-Id: <84/06/17 1433.420@Cornell> My explanation of the Poynting-Robertson effect was slightly wrong. The emission of radiation from the particle does not change its momentum; rather, more starlight hits the front of the particle than the back due to abberation. A similar phenomenom limits the maximum energy cosmic ray particles can have. If they travel too fast they lose energy by scattering off 3 K background photons (blue shifted to gamma rays). ------------------------------ Date: 19 Jun 1984 12:16-EST From: David.Smith@CMU-CS-IUS.ARPA Subject: Rocket engines To: JoSH@rutgers Cc: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC Message-Id: <456509763/drs@CMU-CS-IUS> I think there is a flaw in that argument based on the rocket engine box diagrams. I agree that with the box bottom closed, there is no net thrust. There is also no flow of propellant into the box, if the pressure is to remain the same. The second box, with the bottom removed, requires a certain propellant flow into the chamber in order to keep the pressure at 100 psi. Fine. Now the third box is in the 15 psi atmosphere, so that the pressure differential is 85 psi. The thrust is now 85 pounds instead of 100. OK, I'll buy that. ------ BUT ------ The 85 psi pressure differential causes less loss of combustion products out the bottom. Therefore, maintenance of the 100 psi chamber pressure requires less propellant input to the engine. So all we have proven is that burning less fuel in the atmosphere produces less thrust than burning more fuel in space. Alternatively, if the mass flow is the same, the chamber pressure will rise above 100 psi. David Smith ------------------------------ Date: 19 Jun 1984 15:43:08-EDT From: Dale.Amon at CMU-RI-FAS Subject: Scientists for a Manned Space Station SCIENTISTS FOR A MANNED SPACE STATION News Release 1:00PM, Monday May 14,1984 Contact: Robert Jastrow 603-646-3361 or 603-646-2373 Eight prominent university scientists have come out in strong support of NASA's manned Space Station. The scientific value of the manned Space Station has been challenged by physicist James Van Allen of the University of Iowa, who says it is "inefficient." In anticipation of a House Appropriation Committee meeting this week, the eight scientists have written to Congressman Jerry Lewis (R-CA), member of the Appropriations Committee. The scientists write, "It is our judgement that NASA's manned Space Station will be of great scientific value in astronomy and lunar and planetary science." The scientists' statement concludes, "The Space Station's combination of scientific uses and commercial applications makes it a highly cost-effective facility with major benefits to the US economy as well as to basic scientific knowledge." The full statement follows: As scientists who have been working in the field of space science for many years, we have concluded that NASA's manned Space Station will be of great scientific value in astronomy and lunar and planetary science and in the scientific observation of the near-earth environment. We want to indicate our strong support for this project on it's scientific merits. In astronomy, we are impressed by the capabilities of the Space Station for orbital repair, refurbishing, and resupply of fuel and cryogenics to costly research facilities including the Space Telescope, the Gamma Ray Observatory and the proposed Advanced X-ray Astrophysics Facility and Space Infrared Telescope Facility. The orbiting observatories are among the most important scientific projects of our time because they may provide answers to some of the greatest cosmic mysteries. Yet they are extremely expensive; the Space Telescope alone cost more than one billion dollars. If they stop working, they will not be replaced in our lifetime. The manned Space Station can make an invaluable contribution to scientific progress by keeping these great observatories in continuous service. The Shuttle also is useful in this connection, as demonstrated by the repair of Solar Max, but the Space Station will be more cost effective for that purpose because spare parts for operating satellites will be warehoused in the Space Station and available for prompt repairs at essentially zero incremental cost. This is in contrast to special Shuttle launches dedicated wholly or partly to repairs, which cost 70 to 80 million dollars each. In addition, prompt satellite repairs from the SHuttle could require scrubbing of planned missions with disruptive impact on scientific and commercial launch schedules. (The repair of Solar Max was planned years before the mission was undertaken.) Finally, major satellite repairs, requiring extended operations in orbit, are feasible from the Space Station but not from the Shuttle. In lunar and planetary science, the manned Space Station can function as a way station en route to the moon and the planets. It can also function as a lab for preliminary processing of samples returned from planets, comets and earth-approaching asteroids. One of the mmost exciting near-term projhects in planetary exploration is the return of a sample of Martian soil to the earth for geological and biological study. If attempted by direct ascent from the earth's surface, this project would require a Saturn-5-class booster, which is not available and not in NASA's planning. If the elements of the mission are carried into orbit in the Shuttle and assembled at the Space Station, the Mars sample return becomes possible. In the longer term, the return to the moon and the establishment of a lunar base for scientific observations holds great promise as a source of major scientific discoveries. In addition, the lunar base itself, once extablished, greatly increases our capability for exploration of the solar system. Again, the lunar base, if attempted by direct ascent from the earth, is not feasible without a Saturn-class booseter, but becomes a feasible goal if the Space Station if available as a staging area for orbital assembly of supplies and equipment. These scientific uses of the Space Station are in addition to its bread-and-butter activities as a repair shop for commercial satellites, a warehouse for stockpiling spare satellites, and a pilot plant and industrial laboratory for orbital processing of materials. Repairs to satellites in the Space Station can save the taxpayer and the private sector a staggering amount of money over the course of a decade, since large satellites cost about 100 million dollars each and hundreds are planned for launch in the next decade. A large fraction of the cost of the Space Station can be written off in savings from satellite repairs alone. This combination of scientific uses and commercial applications makes the manned Space Station a highly cost-effective facility with major benefits to the US economy as well as to basci scientific knowledge. Signed by: James R. Arnold Director, California Space Institute and Harold C. URey Professor of Chemistry, University of California an La Jolla Charles A. Barth Director, Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics, Professor Astrophysics and Professor Planetary and Atmospheric Sciences, University of Colorado Paul Coleman President, Universities Space Research Association, Professor of Geophysics and Space Physics, University of California at Los Angeles, and Assistant Director, Los Alamos National Labortory Robert Jastrow Founder and Director (retired), Goddard Institute for Space Studies and Professor of Earth Sciencese, Dartmouth College Eugene Shoemaker Porfessor of Geology and Planetary Sciences, California Institute of Technolgy, and Research Geologist, US Geological Survey. Bradford A. Smith Professor of Astronomy and Professor of Planetary Sciences, University of Arizona Harlan Smith Director of McDonald Observatory, Professor of Astronomy, University of Texas, and former Chairman of the Committee on Space Astronomy and Astrophysics of the Space Science Board, National Academy of Sciences. Laura Wilkening Vice Provost and professor of Planetary Sciences, University of Arizona END ======================================================================= Once again ------------------------------ Date: 19 Jun 1984 15:45:43-EDT From: Dale.Amon at CMU-RI-FAS Subject: thanks for help Once again, I'd let to extend thanks to all of those who lent their names to our SUCCESSFUL efforts to give this country a space station. Dale Amon ------------------------------ Date: 19 Jun 1984 19:04:19-EDT From: Dale.Amon at CMU-RI-FAS Subject: LaRouche is bad news I have just done a bit of research on LaRouche, and discovered that he is much more than a nut. He has had at least 500 of his followers trained in small arms, garrot and other guerrilla warfare techiques. He has been involved with Communist organizations going back to WWII, and is at this time building a strangely intertwined network of far left and far right hate groups, including everything KKK, anti semitic organizations and one of his own main fronts, the USLP (US labor Party). In the early 70's, after splintering from the SDS, he attempted to force the CPSA into a merger under his control, and used violent harassment of CPSA members to attempt beating the organization (literrally) into submission. He failed in this attempt. His inner cadre has gone through years of 'self-criticism' and total 'party' control of their lives. They give blind obedience, and as stated before, many have received topflight training from mercenaries and Viet-nam vets in training camps in Georgia and in Pennsylvania. This is no simple nut. This is a very dangerous maniac with a private army. ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 21-Jun-84 0403 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #227 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 227 Today's Topics: LaRouche more thrust in atmosphere Re: Spectator needs help ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 20 Jun 1984 08:18:11-EDT From: sde@Mitre-Bedford To: space@mit-mc Subject: LaRouche Cc: sde@Mitre-Bedford There is even more. His group(s) publish(ed) at least two magazines, "Fusion" and another whose name I don't recall. Most of you have probably seen "Fusion" at some time; the other is wilder and wierder. According to the latter, all the trouubles of the world are due to a conspiracy dating back to classical Greece & Babylonia, by way of the Jews (of course) and the British Secret Service. I kid you not. There is much more, but by now everyone on the net can fill in the gaps pretty easily. As a psych note, if I recall correctly, several years ago LaRouche et alii tried to hook into L-5 etc. and were rebuffed. Hell hath no fury like a messiah-type scorned. Ad Astra, sde@mitre-bedford ------------------------------ Date: 20 Jun 84 16:11:27 EDT From: Louis Steinberg Subject: more thrust in atmosphere To: davis.smith@CMU-CS-IUS.ARPA cc: space@MIT-MC.ARPA My previous message on why rockets give less thrust in the atmosphere neglected two factors. I argued that atmospheric pressure leads to higher exhaust gas pressure, and thus to higher density, lower velocity, and less momentum. One bug is that you could get the higher pressure simply by increasing the temperature of the gas, without increasing density at all. Furthermore, since the exhaust gas and rocket both have lower velocity in the air, and hence lower kinetic energy, the extra energy must be going somewhere and might well be going into hotter gas. However, while conservation of energy shows the gas will be hotter, it also shows it will not be hot enough to make up for the full pressure difference. Assume, to the contrary, that the gas is indeed hot enough so that it has the same density as it had in space, and thus the same momentum. Then the gas has the same kinetic energy as it did in space, and so does the rocket. But the gas is hotter, so the total energy of the system is greater. But we're burning fuel at the same rate, so there is nowhere for that extra enegy to come from. The other bug is that we've all been working in the rocket's frame of reference, but the rocket is accelerating. Newtonian mechanics does not apply to an accelerating frame of reference without corrections for various "pseudo-forces". In this case, the front of the reaction chamber is accelerating away from the burning fuel. The exhaust has to expand just to keep up with the front wall, so temperature and pressure are lower. If the rocket is in the air and has to fight friction, the same thrust will accelerate it less, so the exhaust gas pressure will be higher. A similar thing would happen if the rocket were clamped to a large mass (like the Earth). (Are people out there getting tired of this discussion?) Louis Steinberg ------- ------------------------------ Date: 18 Jun 84 14:08:41-PDT (Mon) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: ihnp4!inuxc!inuxd!arlan @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: Re: Spectator needs help I will be down there, near the Cape also, and need similar information for viewing the launch on the 25th --arlan (317-845-6197; CORnet 8-338-6197) ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 22-Jun-84 0405 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #228 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 228 Today's Topics: Re: more on thrust Re: SPACE Digest V4 #227 Thrust flames Rocket Thrust Thermo Re: Thrust flames LaRouche Re: Re: Thrust flames Re: Land-based vs. Sea-based ICBMs Another machine readable star catalog ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 21 Jun 1984 12:56-EST From: David.Smith@CMU-CS-IUS.ARPA Subject: Re: more on thrust To: space@mc Message-Id: <456684997/drs@CMU-CS-IUS> [Note: I am remailing this to the net because it transpires that Louis did post his message after all.] Your message header does not indicate you sent it to Space-Enthusiasts, so I am replying privately. I am not sure whether you are taking a position, clarifying the issues, or looking for clarification. But I will comment on what you said. One bug is that you could get the higher pressure simply by increasing the temperature of the gas, without increasing density at all. This is true, but I'm not sure what to make of it. Is there a mechanism for causing the temperature to rise? Furthermore, since the exhaust gas and rocket both have lower velocity in the air, and hence lower kinetic energy, the extra energy must be going somewhere and might well be going into hotter gas. I disagree with the premise and the reasoning. One rocket could be tied to a stand on the Earth, while the other could be tied down on the Moon. For understanding the engine operation in space, it doesn't matter which intertial frame you choose, although the kinetic energy certainly depends on the velocity relative to the frame. As far as k.e. is concerned, the proper frame is traveling with the rocket at the beginning of the time infinitesimal. The rocket won't see a higher chamber temperature just because I observe it from a comet. The other bug is that we've all been working in the rocket's frame of reference, but the rocket is accelerating. ... The exhaust has to expand just to keep up with the front wall... True, but I doubt that this is significant. The IUS stage has an exhaust velocity of around 5000 fps. If that velocity is attained over (guessing) a 5 foot nozzle at constant acceleration, we're looking at 80000 g's. Against that, the engine's acceleration is zilch. (Are people out there getting tired of this discussion?) Probably some are. But I find it more stimulating than hearing which modules have been cannibalized from Challenger today. ------------------------------ Date: 21 Jun 84 13:43:35 EDT (Thursday) From: Marmion.wbst@XEROX.ARPA Subject: Re: SPACE Digest V4 #227 To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC.ARPA cc: Marmion.wbst@XEROX.ARPA Check your Star Mail Joe ------------------------------ Date: 21 Jun 84 15:19:49 EDT From: JoSH Subject: Thrust flames To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC.ARPA, david.smith@CMU-CS-IUS.ARPA Ok, I admit to sloppy thinking. I was assuming "less efficient" = "doesn't work as well" = "less thrust" in the case of a rocket. David's objections turn out to be well founded. In the simple case of the rocket-box I described, he points out that the fuel consumption will be lower, offsetting the lower thrust. Of course now you must do the math to find out which has more effect. I worked it out two different ways and it came out exactly equal each time. However, that is only true for a rocket that is sitting still. Forward motion through the air tends to increase the pressure on the front (reducing net thrust) and decrease back-pressure on the nozzle (increasing fuel flow). You may object that this is nothing but good old drag, and in some sense you're right. Another factor to consider is that the efficiency of a rocket in getting into orbit from the surface depends strongly on the alacrity with which it does so. For every second that the rocket dawdles down here in the one-G field, it accumulates 32 fps of delta-V in the wrong direction courtesy of Mother Earth. Since we are agreed that the presence of the atmosphere reduces the thrust (and hence the acceleration) of a given rocket, this gravity effect reduces the total delta-V available for a given amount of fuel, near the surface of the earth, when trying to go upwards, even ignoring atmospheric drag. --JoSH ------------------------------ Date: Thu 21 Jun 84 15:57:53-EDT From: JHEIMANN@BBNA.ARPA Subject: Rocket Thrust Thermo To: space@MIT-MC.ARPA David Smith's argument that the air entrained in a rocket's exhaust adds to the momentum of the exhaust and hence to the impulse of the rocket, if momentum is conserved, neglects the fact that the air was not part of the original system of rocket + fuel, and therefore should be neglected in momentum computations. I had to dust off my thermo text to get a good answer on this, but I think the real reason that thrust is dependant on outside pressure is that one must treat rocket exhaust expansion as adiabatic, not isothermal. This means that the specific heat ratio g=Cp/Cv enters into the formulas. For example, in adiabatic expansion P*V is not constant (we wouldn't expect it to be if temperature isn't constant); instead the constant is P*V^g. In the expression for specific impulse (thrust per unit fuel burned), the pressure dependant component is not Pc - Pa, where Pc is combustion chamber pressure and Pa is ambient pressure, but rather Pc^k - Pa^k, where k=(g-1)/g. Since g>1, 0 < k < 1. Hence if we add a constant to Pc and Pa (increase atmospheric pressure, which increases both ambient and combustion chamber pressure), Pc^k - Pa^k decreases. I'm going to have to double check all this, since my thermo is rusty, but it seems to agree with a formula I dug up for specific impulse. John ------------------------------ Date: 21 Jun 1984 15:34-EST From: David.Smith@CMU-CS-IUS.ARPA Subject: Re: Thrust flames To: JoSH Cc: Space@mc Message-Id: <456694481/drs@CMU-CS-IUS> I agree with your message, but I'd like to hear what your two methods of calculation are. I am told that an ideal gas behaves as if its molecules never collided. If that is what happens in the chamber, then the air would be completely invisible to the exhaust, and in your example the chamber pressure would be 115 psi: 100 psi from the reaction, and 15 psi from the air. But I don't suppose the stuff really is an ideal gas. Your comment on the efficient use of the rocket (distinguished from its own efficiency in generating thrust) points to a trade-off that is made in computing a launch trajectory. In absence of an atmosphere, it is best to burn the fuel quickly at high thrust, in a flat trajectory. This gets the speed up quickly so the earth's gravity mainly curves the trajectory rather than braking it. (In circular orbit, it doesn't brake it at all.) But it also pays to get out of the atmosphere promptly and at low speed, since drag is proportional to the square of the velocity. This argues for a lofted trajectory. A real trajectory is a compromise of these factors. All else being equal, high thrust is also more efficient in plane changing (keeping the burn near the crossing node) and in escaping from closed orbit (concentrating it at periapsis). David Smith ------------------------------ Date: 21 Jun 1984 19:21:54-EDT From: Dale.Amon at CMU-RI-FAS Subject: LaRouche LaRouche owns the following companies, whose managements are controlled by LaRouche trusted individuals: 1) Computron Technologies Inc (Bankrupt 1981) 2) Computype 3) Renaissance Printing Co 4) World Composition Services 5) PMR Printing Co, Inc 6) New Benjamin Franklin Publishing Co, Inc 7) Pepper Fine Arts, Inc His network of organizations consists of the following: 1) International Caucus of Labor (ICLC) 2) National Caucus of Labor Committees (NCLC) 3) National Democratic Policy COmmittee (NDPC) 4) The LaRouche Campaign (TLC) 5) Club of Life (COL) 6) Fusion Energy Foundation (FEF) 7) National Anti-Drug Coalation (NADC) 8) Lafayette Foundation for the Arts and Sciences (LFAS) 9) New Solidarity International Press Service (NSIPS) Among many publications are: 1) Investigative Leads 2) Executive Intelligence Review 3) New Solidarity 4) Fusion 5) The International Journal of Fusion Energy 6) War on Drugs 7) Campaigner 8) Young Scientist The above list(s) are not necessarily complete. ------------------------------ Date: 21 Jun 84 19:30:56 EDT From: JoSH Subject: Re: Re: Thrust flames To: David.Smith@CMU-CS-IUS.ARPA, space@MIT-MC.ARPA Well, first I tried calculating the velocity of the exhaust based on the density of air and the pressure, and using that to estimate rate of flow (ie in cfm of 100psi air); I was trying to get a rough estimate of the relative size of the effects of lessened thrust vs the extra time. When they came out equal I looked up the formula for flow through a tube: all else equal, it's proportional to the pressure difference between the ends. Thus, same answer. If there are any engineers out there on SPACE who would care to give us formulas more specifically applicable to rockets, or experimental figures for any actual ones, please do so. --JoSH ------------------------------ Date: 17 Jun 84 0:43:58-PDT (Sun) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: decvax!mcnc!duke!ucf-cs!giles @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: Re: Land-based vs. Sea-based ICBMs This may be a dumb question, but what is wrong with going over entirely to sea-based missile systems? Before I get a megabyte of mail -- let me explain. In a war, the prime objective *should* be to prevent the other side from hurting you anymore. Therefore, military targets *must* take precedence over civilian targets during a war. Now, where are our current *military* targets? Look at the triad: ICBM silos (the mountain states and north prarie), submarines (the open seas and major seaports), and military airbases (frequently near major cities). If we switch to sea-based missiles, then there will be no targets in the mountains and prarie, and a number of large cities will drop to secondary target status. Major seaports will still be primary targets, but it is far better to lose *only* large coastal cities than large coastal cities *and* large inland cities *and* large segments of farmland *and* .... The largest benefit? It is possible to monitor the position of submarines, take a guess on their size, etc. Also, if nuclear weapons are limited to sea-based launchers only (by treaty ,verified by satellite (Why have those siloes not been filled with concrete yet, comrade?)) their size will also diminish. Not just physical size, but the equivalent tonnage as well. And that will also be a major benefit as well. You won't take out the entire city along with the shipyards. Granted, there may be a warehouse outside of Moscow filled with 10,000 nuclear warheads, but *how will they get them to the US or Europe?* By launcher? -- Too large, satellites would either pick them up directly, sitting around, or their major components. By cruise missile? -- If a submarine launched c.m., displaces another missile If air-launched, improve air defense system. By airplane? -- Improve air defense system. By mail? -- With our postal service? :-) Overall, I would rank up a triad/sea-based comparison as shown: triad sea-based +---------------+---------------+ Warning time | 10 to 30 min | 10 min | (after launch) | | | | | | Number of warheads | ~8000 | 1000 (?) |(50 sub * 20 missiles) | | | Ave. Megatonnage | 5-10 (?) | 1 (?) | | | | Total Throwweight | 60 (?) | 1 (?) |(NOTE RATIO!!!) (in bevatonnes) | | | | | | Targets | all cities | seaports | | farm belt | high seas | | high seas | | +---------------+---------------+ So -- Is it insane to switch to submarines *only*? Yes, they are less accurate than land-based missiles (using inertial techniques, but now we have `smart' techniques with radar & optical signal processing nullifying this point), and there is less warning; but the total throwweight will drop dramatically, both the number of warheads, and their power will decrease, and inland areas will gain a measure of safety. Finally, this will force a new emphasis on anti-submarine techniques, but is this any different than (1) the first military use of the airplane, (2) the first military use of the missile, (3) the first .... As the wheel turns, at last a chance for it to turn toward safety. Bruce Giles {decvax, duke}!ucf-cs!giles giles.ucf-cs@Rand-Relay ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 21 Jun 84 23:42 EST From: Charles Weems To: space@mit-mc.arpa Subject: Another machine readable star catalog I believe that the Space Telescope Institute will also be making their new catalog available. This promises to be much more accurate, and to a much lower magnitude than the Naval Observatory catalog. Unfortunately, this also means massive amounts of data -- a large number of 6250 fci Mag tapes will be required to hold it. Not exactly the sort of thing you'd want to keep on 5" floppies. But for those who'll only settle for the very best.... chip ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 23-Jun-84 0403 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #229 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 229 Today's Topics: sea based icbm's sea-based ICBMs Rocket Thrust Thermo ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 22 Jun 84 9:32:31 EDT From: Dick Koolish Subject: sea based icbm's To: space@mit-mc The primary reason for not relying completely on sea based missiles is the fear that there will be a breakthrough in submarine detection that would make that arm of the triad very vunerable. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 22 Jun 84 10:02:04 pdt From: Rick McGeer (on an aaa-60-s) Message-Id: <8406221702.AA14554@ucbkim.ARPA> To: space@MIT-MC.ARPA, decvax!mcnc!duke!ucf-cs!giles@Berkeley Subject: sea-based ICBMs Three problems with going to a fully sea-based force: (1) You lose flexibility. The Peacekeeper strike force will be able to hit missile silos in the USSR, and thus is a viable counterforce weapon. Current sea-based ICBMs are only good for city-busting, and thus are only useful as a deterrent. The theory behind Peacekeeper is the following: if deterrence fails, but the Soviets (a) don't destroy us in a massive first strike; and (b) still have some strategic offensive capacity left, then the remaining Peacekeeper force can knock out the remaining Soviet offensive capability. This reduces the possibility that an American President will launch on warning [at least if he believes that the Peacekeeper force can partially survive a first strike], since America is then strong enough to survive a strike. God knows what it does to the Soviet strategic doctrine. Of course, if you don't believe in counterforce [many people don't] then this argument fails. (2) SLBM's are a lot more vulnerable than we like to believe. New developments in radar technology permit spy satellites to look beneath the surface of the ocean. Of course, this is a good thing, in general, but it also means that our Trident and Poseidon fleets [as well as the Russian sub fleet] are vulnerable to attack, possibly before they can launch. (3) Exactly how good do you think wartime communications with our sub fleets would be? -- Rick. ------------------------------ Date: 22 Jun 1984 19:32-EST From: David.Smith@CMU-CS-IUS.ARPA Subject: Rocket Thrust Thermo To: JHEIMANN@BBNA.ARPA Cc: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC Message-Id: <456795176/drs@CMU-CS-IUS> David Smith's argument that the air entrained in a rocket's exhaust adds to the momentum of the exhaust and hence to the impulse of the rocket, if momentum is conserved, neglects the fact that the air was not part of the original system of rocket + fuel, and therefore should be neglected in momentum computations. The crux of the argument is whether there is a mechanism for coupling the atmosphere's effects on the exhaust back to the engine. If there is, the air must be taken into the momentum equation; if not, it need not be. I previously presented the arguments I could think of in favor of coupling, egged on in this by the existence of ejectors for VTOLs. An ejector has a large number of small exhaust nozzles piped to a turbine engine. The exhaust entrains the air which is free to enter the top of the ejector system, increasing the mass flow. This is supposed to increase the lift 40% over Harrier-style thrust vectoring. More air drag on the jets => more thrust. The Lockheed XV-4 hovered with ejectors. The Rockwell XFV-12 was supposed to, but the thrust augmentation was below predictions, and it failed. Currently, General Dynamics is proposing a VTOL F-16 variant using ejectors, so they must believe in it. Well, perhaps an important part of an ejector is vanes to keep the exhaust/air from wasting its energy in sideways turbulence. A rocket would lack them. (But I don't know that an ejector has them.) Your thermodynamic explanation is more in the line of what I was looking for. But it looks like I will have to learn a fair bit about thermodynamics to understand it. David Smith ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 24-Jun-84 0403 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #230 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 230 Today's Topics: address addition Announcement of Summer Seminars at Stanford ---------------------------------------------------------------------- id AA01411; Sat, 23 Jun 84 20:45:32 pdt From: id AA10504; Sat, 23 Jun 84 20:45:27 pdt Date: Sat, 23 Jun 84 20:45:27 pdt Message-Id: <8406240345.AA10504@cod.ARPA> To: space@mc Subject: address addition Please add me to your mailing list. Thanks. sdcsvax!bang!bblue@nosc ------------------------------ Date: 21 Jun 84 16:02:33-PDT (Thu) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: hplabs!ames-lm!eugene @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: Announcement of Summer Seminars at Stanford NASA and Stanford University in conjection with the ASEE hold a summer workshop which among other things has public seminars Thursday evenings no charge. The following should be adequate for calendar or .cal files except they do not explicitly say NASA-ASEE/Stanford nor do they say the location (except for the header line) on each line: NASA-ASEE Stanford Seminars 8 PM Skilling Aud., Thursday evenings 6/28 Barton Bernstein THE QUEST FOR THE ARTIFICIAL HEART 7/5 George Spring FROM BAMBOO SHIPS TO GRAPHITE ROCKETS [material science] 7/12 Nicholas Rott ORDERED AND CHAOTIC MOTION (MULTIPLE PENDULUMS) 7/19 C. W. Francies Everitt TESTING EINSTEIN BY ORBITING GYROSCOPES 7/26 Martin Hellman BEYOND WAR: IMPLICATIONS FOR COMPUTER SECURITY AND ENCRYPT. 8/2 Tjeerd van Andel LIFE ON DARK VOLCANOS 8/9 Bill Ballhaus AMES RESEARCH CENTER -- retrospective and prospect --eugene miya NASA Ames Research Center {hplabs,hao,research,icase,dual}!ames-lm!statvax!eugene p.s. I do not plan to summarize these for the net at this time. ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 26-Jun-84 0403 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #231 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 231 Today's Topics: OMNI ASAT article Re: OMNI ASAT article ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 25 Jun 1984 11:15-PDT From: dietz%USC-CSE@USC-ECL.ARPA To: space@MIT-MC.ARPA Subject: OMNI ASAT article The most recent issue of OMNI magazine has an article by Oberg about a technique the Soviets could use to wipe out all satellites in geosynchronous orbit. The idea is to throw small objects into a retrograde GEO orbit. Direct launch from the ground would be prohibitively expensive. Instead, the russians would use the moon to sling the asat onto a retrograde path, with a small burn when it achieves geosynchronous altitude to circularize the orbit. Upon command, the satellite would expel its cargo of pebbles/sand grains/etc. US satellites in geo would encounter the objects at twice orbital velocity, once every 12 hours. ------------------------------ id AA09156; Mon, 25 Jun 84 16:03:25 pdt id AA18003; Mon, 25 Jun 84 16:05:12 pdt Date: Mon, 25 Jun 84 16:05:12 pdt From: Rick McGeer (on an aaa-60-s) Message-Id: <8406252305.AA18003@ucbkim.ARPA> To: dietz%USC-CSE@USC-ECL.ARPA, space@MIT-MC.ARPA Subject: Re: OMNI ASAT article Of course, that would get all the Soviet satellites, too. Don't you think that killing LEO satellites is more likely? It's easier to get the killsat into LEO than GEO, and that's where the more effective spy satellites are, anyhow. -- Rick. ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 27-Jun-84 0405 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #232 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 232 Today's Topics: Shuttle "self-destruct system?" Re: Shuttle "self-destruct system?" Jessie Moore and the English Language Re: Re: Spectator needs help Re: Land-based vs. Sea-based ICBMs ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 25 Jun 84 5:39:49-PDT (Mon) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: ihnp4!ihuxi!bruce19 @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: Shuttle "self-destruct system?" The Sunday Chicago Tribune (June 25th) carried a short article about the launch of Discovery. The article went on to say: "One of Discovery's computer memory banks was replaced Thursday when it failed a test; an explosive cable used by the orbiter's self-destruct system also was replaced." Question - What is the "self-destruct system?" Is this just part of the explosive bolt system for shedding the boosters and tank? Is it maybe intended to destroy military payloads if the shuttle is forced to land in unfriendly territory? Or is the entire shuttle considered "military" and really designed to blow-up on command? Reply by mail to nwuxc!bruce or to ihuxi!bruce19. Bruce Whiteside AT&T-NS 11NW561240 (312)510-6744 ------------------------------ Date: 25 Jun 84 15:20:26-PDT (Mon) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: ihnp4!ihu1h!ajaym @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: Re: Shuttle "self-destruct system?" If someone knows the anwer to this, posting it to the net would be appropriate. I am certainly curious. Jay Mitchell ihnp4!ihu1h!ajaym ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 26 Jun 84 19:18:32 PDT From: Willard Korfhage To: space@mit-mc Subject: Jessie Moore and the English Language I just saw Jessie Moore (shuttle launch director, I think) being interviewed on the MacNeil/Lehrer news hour about the Discovery abort. I cringed the entire time : such stilted bureaucratic jargon! It doesn't help NASA's image one bit. Sigh. Willard ------------------------------ Date: 24 Jun 84 21:30:28-PDT (Sun) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: decvax!mcnc!duke!ucf-cs!giles @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: Re: Re: Spectator needs help Geesh, I don't read news for one week and I was needed... It's too late for everyone coming to watch 41-D, but for future information: (1): Car Passes: Per NASA (last time I asked), allow at least 4 launch notice. That is, if you want to attend the n-th launch on NASA property, request the pass by the n-4 th launch date. (2): Good Sites: Traffic is really starting to thin around here as everyone is getting used to the launches. You can probabily get by arriving at *near* the viewing spots only 1-2 hours in advance (like me tomorrow!). On good site is the north NASA entrance (the one leading to Playalinda National Seashore). Park in a nearby shopping mall, walk 1/4 mile past all the bums sitting in their cars, and camp out near the top of the bridge. You can actually see the launch gantry from the top of the bridge!!!!!!! Of course, it's also nearly due east, so looking into the sun can be a problem. The south entrance also has devoted followers, contact the Titusville CofC for other sites. Personally, I think I may try the north end of the PNS tomorrow. If I do go there, I will be on NASA property ~15 miles north of the pad. BUT, I will be the closest non-NASA person on Merritt Island excepting people on the east side of the above beach. And I won't have to look into the sun. (3): NASA Tours: They offer them daily, EXCEPT FOR THE DAY OF LAUNCHES. Therefore, arrive a few days early (if possible), and you'll get *very* close (or so I hear) to a shuttle on the pad. You can also go to PNS. It seems strange, but I've actually gotten use to seeing a shuttle towering over the beach when I go. (It's not *that* bad, but you do get a pretty good view of the launch complexes from the access roads, and NASA has become *VERY* liberal with its security perimeter near PNS). They also just opened a 5 1/2 story IMAX screen!!!! The ads say they are showing an edited version of *Hail Columbia* -- perhaps they have included shots from the lastest missions ?!?!?! (Review if requested -- I'm going sometime this week). (4): Cheap Lodging: If you want it cheap, DO NOT stay in Orlando (for Ricky Rat & fiends) and drive to Titusville for the launch date. Orlando has *lots* of hotel space, but you pay for it during tourist season. Of course, off season (fall, early spring) it may well be cheaper to stay in Orlando, as the hotels are trying desperately to increase their occupancy, a pressure Titusville hotels do not feel as strongly. (5): Weather et al: Florida + Summer = Rain Rain Rain Rain Rain .... Also, Florida + Summer + Snowbirds = Burn Burn Burn Burn Burn .... So, if you are out for any length of time, bring along an umbrella (wood handle, not metal!) and sunblock (PF 15 if you are from north of the Mason-Dixon line). Seriously -- I used to work at Dismal World (we're all mad at Disney "management" right now...) and an unbelievable number of people got fried because they forgot that the sun is only a few degrees from overhead during the summer. Remember -- Central Florida is at 29.5 degrees north! After all, I, a native of Orlando, generally go to the beach for only 2-3 hours (after months of conditioning) and *still* have a minor sunburn afterwards. (6): Ripley's Section: Believe it or not, KSC is having problems with a PIG POPULATION EXPLOSION!!!. Less than two weeks ago I jogged on a nature trail *directly* across from the landing strip (it was visible when they showed the shuttle landing -- green then road then runway) and encountered a moderate sized pig. After I returned to my car, I met someone else who frequents the trail, and he said they are extremely common. I knew NASA estimated they have ~ 1000 pigs on site, and that they were/are worried about one darting out in front of a landing shuttle, but somehow it didn't seem real until I saw them! If anyone has specific questions, (I may live to regret this) mail them to me. I am pretty sure that we are the closest USENET site to KSC; I think nothing of a trip to it, it's so close. (Literally, I go to PNS in part because it's the closest beach by far. Primarily because it's NATIVE). ave discordia going bump in the night ... bruce giles {decvax, duke}!ucf-cs!giles university of central florida giles.ucf-cs@Rand-Relay orlando, florida 32816 ------------------------------ Date: 24 Jun 84 20:17:30-PDT (Sun) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: decvax!mcnc!duke!ucf-cs!giles @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: Re: Land-based vs. Sea-based ICBMs Date: 27 Jun 1984 1022-PDT (Wednesday) To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC Cc: nwuxc!bruce@sri-spam Subject: Re: SPACE Digest V4 #232, Shuttle "self-destruct system" A coworker of mine who worked on some of the Apollo projects says that NASA typically builds self-destruct mechanisms into all their rockets in case they veer off course. If one of the Apollo rockets were to have gone off course, the astronauts would have ejected, and the range-officer would have exploded the booster in the hope that any pieces of metal would vaporize before hitting the ground and injuring somebody. Of course, that doesn't preclude using the explosives to keep classified material out of the wrong hands too.... Greg DesBrisay SRI gd@sri-spam ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 27 Jun 84 13:53 CST From: Nichael Cramer To: space@mit-mc.arpa cc: giles.ucf-cs@csnet-relay.arpa Subject: Re: Sea Launched Missles There was an article entitled "Delayed Retaliation and Robotics" by J. Bart Czirr and E. Paul Palmer in the 28OCT83 issue of Nation Review [yes, yes, I know, but it *is* an interesting article]. You can look the article up yourself for details, but the basic idea was that of a submarine-based, sea-launched "doomsday" machine. In short, we would have LOTS of small [one or two missile] automated submarines roaming the oceans seemingly at random. Every so often, they come to the surface where they can receive radio messages. When and where and at what radio frequency are kept secret, initially. These messages are of three types: 1] "All is well, resubmerge and continue." 2] "Prepare to be boarded." [for maintenance, reprogramming, etc.] 3] "Begin converging on enemy target." or NO MESSAGE In the event of receipt of this last message [or of NO MESSAGE], the microsub begins moving towards the enemy target and once in position comes to the surface for a short time. If it receives a sorry-it-was-all-a-mistake-message, it goes back on its routine patrol. If it does not receive the message, it resubmerges and wanders about without leaving striking range. At some later time and position [possibly after one or several more safety-check resurfacings] it resurfaces one last time, checks, and in the absence of contradictory orders, fires. Some of the more obvious advantages are: 1] We could freely publish all the times, locations and messages for the resurfacings, say, a week at a time. Anyone, anywhere could send them. One could even imagine a scenario where the Enemy chiefs of staff were made responsible for sending the messages themselves. The worst that could possibly happen is that "that week's worth" of subs get wiped out. This would presumably be a small portion of the total fleet. Besides, we would almost surely be aware of it. So, great, we just stop publishing the schedule. 2] LOTS cheaper. 3] It does have the standard "doomsday" *advantage* [I hope that is the right word] that keeping us alive and well is suddenly in everybody's best interest. i.e., we have to keep supplying the codes. 4] The system is very diffuse, which has two main advantages. The first advantage is tactical, i.e. given how hard it is to find and track one large submarine, how hard would it be to keep track of lots of little submarines, each of which could be anywhere in the world. The second advantage has to do with safety. It would take a very complicated string of events to trigger even a single accidental firing. We could easily aid in the destruction of a rogue submarine, without affecting any of the rest of the system. Still, in worst case, this amount to a single firing from a known site towards a known target almost surely with a lot of warning. [This is, of course, a non-negligible worst case, but several orders of magnitude improvement over any presently existing worst case]. NLC ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 29-Jun-84 0407 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #234 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 234 Today's Topics: Re:Land/Sea based ICBMs/Cruise missiles machine readable star catalogs Discovery Launch Delayed cmsg cancel <544@hound.UUCP> Question on delayed launch of Discovery How many SSME's ignited? Re: Shuttle "self-destruct system?" Post Ignition Abort Re: Question on delayed launch of Discovery Re: Post Ignition Abort Re: Shuttle "self-destruct system?" Re: Shuttle 'self-destruct system?' - (nf) Re: Shuttle "self-destruct system?" Updated Engine Abort Sequence ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 28 Jun 84 08:56:44 EDT From: MG9G@CMCCTF To: space%mit-mc@CMU-CS-A Subject: Re:Land/Sea based ICBMs/Cruise missiles Beg to differ. If ICBMs are replaced by cruise missiles, that doesn't necessarily rule out nuclear holocaust. Certainly, at the present time cruise missiles carry smaller warheads than ICBMs, but only because they are designed with a different purpose. So the ALCM or the Tomahawk can only carry a 5KT(Not sure if that's true-but it's good enough for the sake of argument) warhead, while a Minuteman III carries 3 1.5MT warheads. Picture, if you will, a cruise missile the size of an F-14, and tell me that it will have a smaller warhead. What so many people seem to ignore or rule out when postulating plans for various kinds of disarmament is that any time you find a way to stop a weapon, someone, somewhere, finds a new way to use it. If ICBMs become obsolete, cruise missiles will fill the gap. When the US, or the USSR, surrounds their coastline with Phalanx CIWS to shoot down the cruise missiles, sommeone will come up with something else. And so it goes... Deej (mg9g@cmu-cc-tf) ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 28 Jun 84 15:36:31 EDT From: Dick Koolish Subject: machine readable star catalogs To: space@mit-mc To follow up on the machine readable star catalog message: Circular 164 from the Naval Observatory is "Astronomical Data in Machine Readable Form". It is free from: Administrative Management Division U.S. Naval Observatory 34th and Massachusetts Ave., N.W. Washington, D.C. 20390 ------------------------------ Date: 25 Jun 84 12:48:00-PDT (Mon) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: hplabs!sdcrdcf!sdcsvax!akgua!whuxle!spuxll!abnjh!u1100a!pyuxn!pyuxww!gamma!ulysses!allegra!alice!alb @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: Discovery Launch Delayed The launch of Discovery today was postponed until tomorrow, Tuesday, 26 June, at 0843 EDT, due to a hardware failure in the backup computer on board the shuttle. The faulty computer is being replaced by the backup computer from the Challenger. Today was the first time a shuttle launch has been postponed since STS-2. ------------------------------ Date: 26 Jun 84 5:28:13-PDT (Tue) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: ihnp4!houxm!hound!5143ama @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: cmsg cancel <544@hound.UUCP> ------------------------------ Date: 26 Jun 84 5:33:57-PDT (Tue) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: ihnp4!houxm!hound!5143ama @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: Question on delayed launch of Discovery Can someone please explain how the Discovery can be rescheduled for launch only 24 hours after its launch was scrubbed? I thought they had to empty and refill the fuel tanks, which takes about 48 hours. Thanks in advance. Albert Algava hound!5143ama ------------------------------ Date: 26 Jun 84 8:07:00-PDT (Tue) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: ihnp4!ihlts!rjnoe @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: How many SSME's ignited? Certainly at least one Shuttle Main Engine seemed to be going pretty well, but I'm not sure about number two. It seems probable to me that one of the three just refused to ignite, judging by the time the GPC's cut them off. I don't think that the check for sufficient thrust occurs until all three have had an opportunity to ignite. I think if Discovery ever does get off the ground, the computers will just go berserk and try to kill off all the astronauts. It's happened before :-). Also, did anyone else notice that the sound of the stack settling back just after cutoff sounded a lot like the Excelsior in "Star Trek III: The Search for Spock" breaking down? -- "Aye, and if my grandmother had wheels, she'd be a wagon." Roger Noe ihnp4!ihlts!rjnoe ------------------------------ Date: 26 Jun 84 9:55:39-PDT (Tue) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: hplabs!sdcrdcf!sdcsvax!akgua!whuxle!spuxll!abnjh!u1100a!pyuxn!pyuxww!gamma!ulysses!allegra!alice!alb @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: Re: Shuttle "self-destruct system?" The self destruct system is of similar idea to that used on all American rockets, manned and unmanned. Explosvie charges are positioned in the shuttle and on the ET and SRB's. At the command of the range safety officer, these charges are set off, destroying the orbiter and its tank and boosters. It would be used if, for example, the shuttle veered off course and headed for a populated area. ------------------------------ Date: 26 Jun 84 9:52:27-PDT (Tue) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: hplabs!sdcrdcf!sdcsvax!akgua!whuxle!spuxll!abnjh!u1100a!pyuxn!pyuxww!gamma!ulysses!allegra!alice!alb @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: Post Ignition Abort At T-7 seconds today, Discovery's computer started the SSME ignition sequence, in which all engines are turned on at 120 milllisecond intervals. Two made it, but the computers detected a fuel valve failure in the Number 1 engine and directed it not to fire; they also commanded the other two to shut down. Thus, the countdown was stopped 4 seconds before the SRB's were to have ignited. The engine with the trouble was taken from Challenger earlier in the month, but the fuel valve was apparently one of Discovery's. No word has been given on what sort of delay to expect. It could be several days or several weeks. The crew has been placed on leave status. ------------------------------ Date: 26 Jun 84 9:56:18-PDT (Tue) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: hplabs!sdcrdcf!sdcsvax!akgua!whuxle!spuxll!abnjh!u1100a!pyuxn!pyuxww!gamma!ulysses!allegra!alice!alb @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: Re: Question on delayed launch of Discovery The process of cleaning the ET has been shortened from 48 hours to under a day, just like all the turnaround functions have been improved. ------------------------------ Date: 26 Jun 84 15:13:01-PDT (Tue) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: hplabs!sdcrdcf!sdcsvax!akgua!whuxle!spuxll!abnjh!u1100a!pyuxn!pyuxww!gamma!ulysses!allegra!mouton!karn @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: Re: Post Ignition Abort As I understand it, the number 1 engine never started because it was never given the command to fire. The start sequence is 3, then 2, then 1. After starting engine 2, the onboard computers checked the valve state on engine 3 and found the indication(s) that called for an abort. The engine shutdowns were then commanded before the sequence proceeded to start engine number 1. Phil ------------------------------ Date: 26 Jun 84 15:10:41-PDT (Tue) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: hplabs!sdcrdcf!sdcsvax!akgua!whuxle!spuxll!abnjh!u1100a!pyuxn!pyuxww!gamma!ulysses!allegra!mouton!karn @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: Re: Shuttle "self-destruct system?" A minor correction to Adam's comments about the range safety destruct system. The explosive charges are only on the external tank and on the solid rocket boosters; none are on the orbiter itself. They are actually long linear shaped charges which are designed to split the casing of the booster or tank lengthwise, dumping the propellants and disintegrating the casing. You can see these on the SRBs and ET as longitudinal 'ribs' running for most of their length. (There are other ribs as well which contain more mundane things like electrical cables and fuel lines, so not all of them contain destruct explosives.) The range safety system works by external radio command. I certainly hope that the coding is reasonably secure, but I do remember when I was on hand for the STS-9 launch that during the terminal stages of the countdown (perhaps 10-15 minutes before launch) there was an announcement that a "Range safety system test, using the actual flight codes, had been successfully conducted". This could in theory allow a terrorist to monitor the codes and retransmit them during flight. Considering all the other precautions taken, I hope that it wouldn't be quite this easy. Phil ------------------------------ Date: 26 Jun 84 7:24:10-PDT (Tue) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: hplabs!sdcrdcf!sdcsvax!akgua!whuxle!spuxll!abnjh!u1100a!pyuxn!pyuxww!gamma!ulysses!mhuxl!cbosgd!cbscc!cbneb!adm @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: Re: Shuttle 'self-destruct system?' - (nf) #R:ihuxi:-94000:cbneb:10300001:000:30 cbneb!jdd Jun 26 09:35:00 1984 Kirk: 11A Scotty: 11A2B ... ------------------------------ Date: 26 Jun 84 6:36:24-PDT (Tue) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: ihnp4!mgnetp!hw3b!wnuxb!djmolny @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: Re: Shuttle "self-destruct system?" In light of Tuesday's fizzled launch, who needs a self-destruct!? Today's Chicago Tribune (Tues., 6/26) has an article about the replacement of Discovery's backup computer, described as costing $1.2 million, and weighing 57 tons. No wonder it won't fly. Regards, DJ Molny, ccom consultants, inc at AT&T Technologies ihnp4!mgnetp!hw3b!wnuxb!djmolny ------------------------------ Date: 26 Jun 84 19:55:47-PDT (Tue) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: hplabs!sdcrdcf!sdcsvax!akgua!whuxle!spuxll!abnjh!u1100a!pyuxn!pyuxww!gamma!ulysses!allegra!alice!alb @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: Updated Engine Abort Sequence NASA this afternoon corrected the statement that Engines 3 and 2 fired, Engine 1 had the problem, and 3 and 2 then shut down. What happened was this: The firing sequence is (in order) Engine 3, then 2, then 1, at 120 millisecond intervals. The primary hydrogen fuel valve for Engine 3 never opened; thus, Engine 3 never ignited. Engine 2 ignited for a brief time and was shut down by the computers. Engine 1's ignition was never started (due to the shutdown order). Thus, only one engine (Number 2) actually fired this morning. ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 01-Jul-84 0404 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #235 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 235 Today's Topics: planets and satelites Chicago Tribune Article Re: SPACE Digest V4 #234 Runway to orbit ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 27 Jun 84 10:13:52-PDT (Wed) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: ihnp4!ihuxs!jcdsc @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: planets and satelites I have seen a lot of pictures made by spacecrafts passing the other planets. Also descriptions about the environent on the planets and satelites are given in magazines like Scientific American, Astronomy, etc. All those nearby flights to the planets and satelites must have resulted in much better values for the masses and sizes of the planets and satelites as were known before, but I don't known where I can get this kind of information. Dick Scherpenzeel AT&T Bell Laboratories Naperville, Il ...ihnp4!ihuxs!jcdsc ------------------------------ From: gd@sri-spam (Greg DesBrisay) Message-Id: <8406291748.AA03594@sri-spam.ARPA> Date: 29 Jun 1984 1048-PDT (Friday) To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC Cc: gd@sri-spam Subject: Chicago Tribune Article Today's Chicago Tribune (Tues., 6/26) has an article about the replacement of Discovery's backup computer, described as costing $1.2 million, and weighing 57 tons. No wonder it won't fly. I remember seeing news pictures of a technician picking up and carrying a box that the reporter said was the backup computer that failed on the first launch try; it sure didn't look like 57 tons! By the way, does the Chicago Tribune mean to imply that NASA is going to throw that 1.2-million dollar computer on the scrap heap?! Even the government tries to fix such expensive pieces of equipment and use them again, don't they? Greg DesBrisay gd@sri-spam ------------------------------ Date: 29 Jun 1984 11:07-PDT Subject: Re: SPACE Digest V4 #234 Subject: [No News is Good News] From: Craig E. Ward To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC.ARPA Message-ID: <[USC-ISIF.ARPA]29-Jun-84 11:07:42.WARD> Date: 25 Jun 84 12:48:00-PDT (Mon) From: hplabs!sdcrdcf!sdcsvax!akgua!whuxle!spuxll!abnjh!u1100a!pyuxn!pyuxww!gamma!ulysses!allegra!alice!alb @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: Discovery Launch Delayed ------------------------------ Date: 26 Jun 84 9:52:27-PDT (Tue) From: hplabs!sdcrdcf!sdcsvax!akgua!whuxle!spuxll!abnjh!u1100a!pyuxn!pyuxww!gamma!ulysses!allegra!alice!alb @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: Post Ignition Abort The net is not a very good vehicle for distributing late breaking news. Please, if you're not going to elaborate, don't send out yesterday's news! (I deleted the text to save space). Thanks in advance, Craig ------------------------------ Date: 29 Jun 1984 14:08-EST From: David.Smith@CMU-CS-IUS.ARPA Subject: Runway to orbit To: space@mc Message-Id: <457380493/drs@CMU-CS-IUS> >From the Aerospace Spotlight column in the June Aerospace America: The U.S. can now build a prototype SR-71-class hydrogen scramjet-powered plane within three years, [DARPA director] Cooper announced. Such a plane, he said, could take off from a 10,000-foot runway and use rockets to fly into low Earth orbit. ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 03-Jul-84 0406 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #236 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 236 Today's Topics: Re: [No News is Good News] Minor Fire Damage Re: [No News is Good News] Aviation Space Magazine and Aerospace Education Assn. Re: [No News is Good News] Scramjets, etc. Cruise Missile Warhead Size Gene Roddenberry in LA Spaceweek 1984 in LA Re: Scramjets, etc. Re: Shuttle "self-destruct system?" ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 1 Jul 1984 20:20:47 EDT (Sunday) From: Stephen X. Nahm Subject: Re: [No News is Good News] To: Craig E. Ward Cc: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC.ARPA Craig, First, you should be able to tell from the "From:" field that these messages come from the uucp net; that net doesn't use the digest format of info-space@mit-mc, so the messages won't have the same delay (and for sites close to 'alice', they might even be timely :-). Second, even if the news is stale, I like hearing about just what happened from those who know; the general news outlets tend to heavily filter the information for the masses. Glad to be of help, Steve ------------------------------ Date: 27 Jun 84 11:07:06-PDT (Wed) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: ihnp4!houxm!mhuxl!ulysses!allegra!alice!alb @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: Minor Fire Damage The Discovery suffered only minor fire damage, a few scorch and burn marks but no engine or tile damage, yesterday, and NASA said that the launch might be rescheduled in 10 to 14 days. ------------------------------ Date: 2 Jul 1984 10:32-PDT Sender: WARD@USC-ISIF.ARPA Subject: Re: [No News is Good News] From: Craig E. Ward To: sxn@BBNCC-WASHINGTON.ARPA Cc: WARD@USC-ISIF.ARPA, Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC.ARPA Message-ID: <[USC-ISIF.ARPA] 2-Jul-84 10:32:38.WARD> Steve, What net they come from isn't important. Perhaps if I had not deleted to text you would have noticed that these messages did not add anything to what was being reported over the mass media. I too enjoy hearing extra information from those who have better sources; however, merely repeating the thirty word contents of a radio news report will not be timely even for sites close to 'alice' and I object to seeing it in the digest. Craig ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 2 Jul 84 02:47 PDT From: Gloger.es@XEROX.ARPA Subject: Aviation Space Magazine and Aerospace Education Assn. To: SPACE@MIT-MC.ARPA cc: Gloger.es@XEROX.ARPA I've just received in the mail a "complimentary copy" of a magazine called "Aviation Space," 80 pages long, lots of color, published by Aerospace Education Association. It looks like a cross between the L-5 News and one of the current popular science magazines. They're selling subscriptions at $25/year, plus dozens or maybe even hundreds of different books, slides, prints, videocassettes, plastic models, etc., many of them very attractive. They claim to be well-established, with more than a million readers. If that's so, I must be the only person on SPACE who doesn't already know about them. Comments please, anybody, before I send 'em a wad of money? Thanks, Paul Gloger ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 2 Jul 84 11:04:03 pdt From: Rick McGeer (on an sun) Message-Id: <8407021804.AA09524@ucbkim.ARPA> To: sxn@bbncc-washington, WARD@USC-ISIF.ARPA Subject: Re: [No News is Good News] Cc: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC.ARPA Actually, what surprises me is that the uucp messages bounced around usenet so much before they got out into the world. I'm sure that there must be a more accessable gateway. ------------------------------ Date: Mon 2 Jul 84 12:21:58-EDT From: JHEIMANN@BBNA.ARPA Subject: Scramjets, etc. To: space@MIT-MC.ARPA Scramjets are supersonic combustion ramjets, as I recall. Does anybody know anything more about them? Are they just ramjets that work at very high speed, or are there special problems with turbulence in the combustion chamber or mixing fuel and air or whatever asscociated with them? Now that I'm thinking about it, I seem to recall reading about hypersonic research projects in the sixties. Does the word "hypersonic" have a well defined meaning - i.e. is there a threshold above which certain aerodynamic effects come into play - or does it just mean "much faster than supersonic?" On a related note, what were the reasons for US aircraft companies' abandonment of the SST? I remember that noise and pollution of the upper atmosphere were sources of public concern, but was the real reason economic? John ------------------------------ Date: 1 Jul 1984 8:28-PDT From: dietz%USC-CSE@ECLA To: space@MIT-MC.ARPA Subject: Cruise Missile Warhead Size I believe the yield of the cruise missile warhead is 270 KT, not 5 KT. Doesn't this discussion belong on arms-d? ------------------------------ Date: 2 Jul 1984 15:01:06 PDT Subject: Gene Roddenberry in LA From: Alan R. Katz To: bboard@USC-ISIF.ARPA, bboard@USC-ECL.ARPA, space@MIT-MC.ARPA, sf-lovers@RUTGERS.ARPA cc: katz@USC-ISIF.ARPA Gene Roddenberry, the creator of Star Trek, will be giving a talk for the OASIS/L5 lecture series on July 17, 1984 as a part of Spaceweek. The program will begin at 7:00 pm at the Glendale High School Auditorium. Admission is $5.00, $3.00 for OASIS/L5 members. Tickets may be purchased at the door, or from: OASIS/L5 PO Box 1231 Redondo Beach, Ca 90278 For more information, call (213)374-1381. ------- ------------------------------ Date: 2 Jul 1984 15:16:08 PDT Subject: Spaceweek 1984 in LA From: Alan R. Katz To: bboard@USC-ISIF.ARPA, bboard@USC-ECL.ARPA, space@MIT-MC.ARPA, sf-lovers@RUTGERS.ARPA cc: katz@USC-ISIF.ARPA SPACEWEEK 1984 IN LOS ANGELES: Spaceweek 1984, which commemorates the 15th anniversary of mankind's first moon landing, will be celebrated in Los Angeles on July 16-22. Below is a list of some of the activities, including where to find out more about them. (NOTE: These events are sponsored by many Southern Californian pro-space groups). Many cities will be having their own spaceweek activities, if you do not live in the LA area, you should contact your local L5 or AIAA chapter. LOS ANGELES SPACEWEEK SCHEDULE OF EVENTS Gene Roddenberry lecture, July 17, 7 p.m., Glendale High School, 1440 E. Broadway. Ticket information: $3 for OASIS/L-5 members, $5 for non-members. Write to OASIS/L-5, P.O. Box 1231, Redondo Beach, CA 90278. Buzz Aldrin luncheon, July 18, 11:30 a.m., The Proud Bird, 11022 Aviation Blvd. Ticket information: $20 per person. Write to Westchester/LAX Chamber of Commerce, 8833 South Sepulveda Blvd., Westchester, CA 90045. (213) 645-5151. Space Station dinner, July 20, 6:30 p.m., Orange County Mining Co., 10000 Crawford Canyon Rd., Orange County. Ticket information: $12; AIAA student members-$6, dinner is free if you join AIAA at the meeting. Call: Dr. Ron Richmond (714)720-6007, Bill Rickland (213)593-7525 or Mike Kirkland (805)253-5332. Aerospace Musuem Reception, July 21, 7 p.m., California Museum of Science and Industry, 700 State Drive, Los Angeles. Ticket information: $30 per person. Write to Los Angeles Section AIAA, 5001 Airport Plaza Drive, Long Beach, CA 90815. Rockwell Open House, July 13, 7 p.m., Rockwell International, 12214 Lakewood Blvd., Downey. Park and enter through Gate 53 at the southwest corner of Bellflower Blvd. and Stewart and Gray Rd. Admission is free. Voyages of Apollo, July 13, 7:30 p.m., Orange Coast College, 2701 Fairview Rd., Chemistry 214, Costa Mesa (parking off Adams St.). Ticket information: $2 at the door. Call: Jim Moore (714)558-0555. Alan ------- ------------------------------ id AA00482; Mon, 2 Jul 84 15:13:47 pdt id AA13210; Mon, 2 Jul 84 14:16:29 pdt Date: Mon, 2 Jul 84 14:16:29 pdt From: Rick McGeer (on an sun) Message-Id: <8407022116.AA13210@ucbkim.ARPA> To: JHEIMANN@BBNA.ARPA, space@MIT-MC.ARPA Subject: Re: Scramjets, etc. The real reason was that Congress killed the development funds. Why the aerospace firms [Boeing in particular] needed govt. funds to develop the aircraft is a good question, one I don't have the answer to. -- Rick. ------------------------------ Date: 28 Jun 84 13:46:22-PDT (Thu) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: hplabs!hao!seismo!rlgvax!cvl!umcp-cs!judd @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: Re: Shuttle "self-destruct system?" OK what happens to the shuttle itself after the fire command ?? -- Spoken: Judd Rogers Arpa: judd.umcp-cs@CSNet-relay Uucp:...{allegra,seismo}!umcp-cs!judd ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 04-Jul-84 0404 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #237 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 237 Today's Topics: Re: SPACE Digest V4 #236 Hypersonic == 5x speed of sound Re: Hypersonic == 5x speed of sound Scramjets ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 3 Jul 84 10:19:23 EDT From: Joe Pistritto To: Space-Enthusiasts@mit-mc.ARPA Subject: Re: SPACE Digest V4 #236 From the July 2nd issue of Aviation Week, this summary of events immediately after the aborted launch of Discovery: All times are T+ times, ie. seconds/minutes after intended launch. 2 sec - "We have an RSLS abort" - Lockheed rep on launch console to NASA 6 sec - "Ground Launch Sequencer safing in progress" - a reference to returning range safety charges to disarmed condition 12 sec - "Verify engine ignition is safe" - Lockheed test director 17 sec - "Break - break - ground launch sequencer shows engine one not shut down" - indicating a possibly runaway engine, which caused several minutes of confusion before it was verified that one had never been ignited, (the sequence aborted before that) 45 sec - "All engines are shut down" - test director 49 sec - "We have a red light on engines two and three in the cockpit, not on one" - Astronaut Hartsfield from Discovery, verifying that one had not ignited. 1 min. 59 sec. - "I think we are okay now, everything looks good, safing is in progress, I think its finished"|y|yyyy|| 2 min. 30 sec. - "Ground launch sequencer safing is complete" 3 min. 30 sec. - A controller radios test director Weinberg "Do you know there is a small flame on tv monitor 58 on the main engines?" (it turned out to be engine #3) -- several minutes of discussion of fires around the vehicle followed, along with several instances where the water deluge system used to suppress the shock of launch was manually turned off and on. Fires continued until 20 min. or so. During this period, an emergceny evacuation of the crew was considered but not initiated. Crew was evacuated at T+40 minutes using the crew access arm and the gantry elevator. Thought someone might like to know... -JCP- ------------------------------ Date: 3 Jul 84 12:42:06 EDT From: Ron Subject: Hypersonic == 5x speed of sound To: space@MIT-MC.ARPA (ron) [Presumably that's >= 5x. -Ed.] ------------------------------ Date: Tue 3 Jul 84 13:34:52-EDT From: Martin J Mahoney Subject: Re: Hypersonic == 5x speed of sound To: space@MIT-MC.ARPA Is there any reason the 5x was chosen? Was it chosen because it is a nice number or are there any aerodynamic reasons which makes travelling faster than Mach 5 different than travelling faster than Mach 1 Martin Mahoney ------------------------------ Date: 3 July 1984 23:36-EDT From: Robert E. Bruccoleri Subject: Scramjets To: SPACE-ENTHUSIASTS @ MIT-MC The idea behind a scramjet is that the flow of air through the combustion chamber is supersonic. Even in turbojets which operate at supersonic speeds, the air flow in the combustion chamber is subsonic. The air flow is slowed by the inlet and the compressor; after combustion, the heating then accelerates the air back up to supersonic speeds. The reason this distinction is important is that an ordinary flame cannot be maintained in supersonic flow (in effect, the molecules are moving too fast for any reaction to propogate). All I've heard beyond this is that no scramjet has generated more thrust than its own drag, presumably because the inlets and flame holders obstruct the flow. After hearing about this problem, I had a thought which I'd like those reading this digest who really know something about it to criticize. Since the propogation of combustion requires a chain reaction which continually maintains free radicals of oxygen and of the fuel, perhaps one could use an continuous ultraviolet laser operating at a frequency corresponding to the dissociation energy of one of the electrons on either oxygen or the fuel. This laser would maintain a population of radicals that would maintain combustion. Bob Bruccoleri (BRUC@MIT-MC) ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 05-Jul-84 0405 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #238 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 238 Today's Topics: NASA considers combining two flights Scramjet problems ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 04 Jul 84 1315 PDT From: Ross Finlayson Subject: NASA considers combining two flights To: space@MIT-MC.ARPA a046 0338 04 Jul 84 PM-Shuttle Plans,340 NASA Officials Considering Eliminating One Shuttle Mission By HOWARD BENEDICT AP Aerospace Writer CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) - The last-second scrapping of Discovery's maiden voyage June 26 may force the elimination of one of the planned space shuttle flights this year, sources reported. NASA officials are considering combining into a single flight the best features of last week's aborted mission and the next flight scheduled in August, the sources, who insisted on anonymity, said Tuesday. That plan would eliminate one mission and would help put the shuttle launch schedule back on track, said the sources, who emphasized that several other ideas are being considered. The sources said several top officials of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration don't like the combined-flight approach and are pressing instead to reset Discovery's launch as soon as possible and try to catch up with the rest of the schedule later. The Discovery countdown was stopped four seconds before liftoff when a computer ordered an engine shutdown after detecting an engine fuel valve which didn't open. The earliest possible new launch date is July 17, officials have said. A decision may come later this week when NASA management officials meet to assess the impact of Discovery's delay. If a combined mission is selected, a decision will have to be made as to which crew will fly - the six who were aboard when the launch was aborted last week or the five slated for the next trip. And payloads might have to be shifted to later flights. Discovery's second flight is scheduled Aug. 29, but NASA has said that almost certainly will be moved back because of the abort. After that, three more flights are scheduled in 1984 - in October, November and December, with Challenger and Discovery alternating. With 13 flights scheduled next year, NASA is concerned with bunching up the schedule, even with three shuttles flying. If Discovery's second mission is delayed into September officials said it would have to land at night at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif., because of the requirement to deploy three communications satellites at precise times. But that flight is to be the first in which the shuttle attempts an automatic landing, and NASA wants to accomplish that in the daytime. ap-ny-07-04 0638EDT ********** ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 4 Jul 84 23:31:04 EDT From: Joe Pistritto To: Space-Enthusiasts@mit-mc.ARPA Subject: Scramjet problems Assuming that you could maintain a population of free radicals thru means other than heating due to combustion, (Lasar dissociation was postulated), you also have to worry about the kinetic energy of the molecules being high enough to support the reaction. The SR-71A gets around this, (it has subsonic chamber flow, buts its the same idea from a kinetic energy standpoint), by using the movable shock cones on the front of the intakes to propagate a compression shock wave INTO the intake, thereby raising both pressure and temperature. Remember also that the SR-71 operates at in excess of Mach 3.0, and the combustion chamber flow NEVER goes Transonic. It may be possible to maintain this, (albeit at higher altitudes), for considerably higher Mach numbers... If you go high enough though, you run out of oxygen, which is another story... -JCP- ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 06-Jul-84 0404 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #239 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 239 Today's Topics: Re: OMNI ASAT article ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 2 Jul 84 9:29:36-PDT (Mon) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: hplabs!sdcrdcf!lwall @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: Re: OMNI ASAT article In article <20400bbb.142@apollo.uucp> eric@apollo.UUCP writes: >>The most recent issue of OMNI magazine has an article by Oberg about >>a technique the Soviets could use to wipe out all satellites in >>geosynchronous orbit. >> >>Upon command, the satellite would expel its >>cargo of pebbles/sand grains/etc. US satellites in geo would encounter >>the objects at twice orbital velocity, once every 12 hours. > >What a mess that would make! GEO orbits are VALUABLE! And it would be >a long time (if ever) before anyone could clean them up. Who thinks of >this stuff, I wonder? Chess players. QxR/GEO, sacrificing Q but mate in 2. Larry Wall {allegra,burdvax,cbosgd,hplabs,ihnp4,sdcsvax}!sdcrdcf!lwall ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 07-Jul-84 0405 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #240 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 240 Today's Topics: Re: Shuttle "self-destruct system?" Loose Insulation Engine Replaced Re:Land/Sea based ICBMs/Cruise missiles Re: OMNI ASAT article ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 1 Jul 84 20:11:23-PDT (Sun) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: decvax!genrad!grkermit!masscomp!clyde!burl!ulysses!allegra!alice!alb @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: Re: Shuttle "self-destruct system?" Presumably, it will have had time to jettison away from the ET and SRB's. ------------------------------ Date: 2 Jul 84 13:46:07-PDT (Mon) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: hplabs!sdcrdcf!sdcsvax!akgua!whuxle!spuxll!abnjh!u1100a!pyuxn!pyuxww!gamma!ulysses!allegra!alice!alb @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: Loose Insulation Engineers today discovered loose insulation on a fuel line in Discovery's Number 3 Engine while they were removing it for replacement. The loose insulation may have allowed nitrogen, used to purge the engine, to come into contact with the super-cold hydrogen fuel, liquify, and clog the valve that didn't open. ------------------------------ Date: 2 Jul 84 21:07:26-PDT (Mon) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: hplabs!sdcrdcf!sdcsvax!akgua!whuxle!spuxll!abnjh!u1100a!pyuxn!pyuxww!gamma!ulysses!allegra!alice!alb @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: Engine Replaced Workers today replaced the Number 3 Engine of the Discovery well ahead of schedule. The old engine and its faulty valve have been shipped separately to a testing lab and the manufacturer (respectively) for further examination. NASA, wanting to fully understand the problem that led to the aborted launch of 41-D, said that 17 July looks like the earliest possible new launch date. ------------------------------ Date: 3 Jul 84 15:58:38-PDT (Tue) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: hplabs!hao!seismo!cmcl2!philabs!linus!utzoo!henry @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: Re:Land/Sea based ICBMs/Cruise missiles > at the present time cruise missiles carry smaller warheads than ICBMs, but > only because they are designed with a different purpose. So the ALCM > or the Tomahawk can only carry a 5KT(Not sure if that's true-but it's > good enough for the sake of argument) warhead, while a Minuteman III > carries 3 1.5MT warheads. Picture, if you will, a cruise missile the > size of an F-14, and tell me that it will have a smaller warhead. You don't even need to go that far. Remember that a lousy little 13-kiloton bomb demolished Hiroshima. When the Oppenheimer committee recommended against US development of the hydrogen bomb, one of their reasons was that there was no real need for it: fission bombs were powerful enough to meet all valid military requirements. -- Henry (why no net.arms-d??) Spencer U of Toronto Zoology {allegra,ihnp4,linus,decvax}!utzoo!henry ------------------------------ Date: 6 Jul 84 13:45:08 PDT From: Murray.pa@XEROX.ARPA Subject: Re: OMNI ASAT article To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC.ARPA Cc: Murray.pa@XEROX.ARPA How would sand or pebbles stay in GEO? There isn't much air left up there, but there is radiation pressure. What else disturbs orbits? ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 08-Jul-84 0405 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #241 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 241 Today's Topics: Sand/Pebbles/Geosynchronous orbit Dyson's New Book WEAPONS AND HOPE Dyson's New Book WEAPONS AND HOPE Re: useless repeats of ancient history -- moderator please help Fire after Discovery Shutdown? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 7 Jul 84 17:40:51 EDT From: MG9G@CMCCTF To: space%mit-mc@CMU-CS-A Attention: Space Bboard Subject: Sand/Pebbles/Geosynchronous orbit How would sand or pebbles remain in geosynch. orbit? It really doesn't matter if the particles' orbits decay after 1 or 2 orbits-if there are enough of them, which there would be, the job would be done by then... Why isn't this on net.arms? We poor peons without access to CMU Computer Science machines don't have access to ARPANET, and get the Space BB only through the grace of the CMU Comp Center... Deej mg9g@cmu-cc-tf ------------------------------ Date: 5 Jul 84 12:27:24-PDT (Thu) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: hplabs!hao!noao!astrovax!elt @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: Dyson's New Book WEAPONS AND HOPE I have just finished reading Freeman Dyson's new book WEAPONS AND HOPE about the nuclear arms problem. I recommend it very strongly to anyone interested in this topic. It is, in my experience, absolutely unique in its point of view and approach. I expect that essentially everyone will find themselves stimulated and challenged by some of the arguments Dyson advances, particularly from the historical metaphors and comparisons he presents. Basically the book refuses to take either of the two familiar points of view about nuclear weapons which it identifies as the warrior's (detached, rational, and perhaps fasinated) and the victim's (involved, emotional, and perhaps despairing). It instead seeks some middle ground upon which these two views can meet and relate to one another. Neither view is taken to be "correct" but the strengths and inadequacies of both are explored. This is the best I can do at a *general* description of the book. It also is full of fascinating material about the evolution of our current situation, the Soviet view of nuclear war, civil defense, high tech defenses, militarization of space, disarmament negotiations, the history of previous peace and disarmament movements, etc. If you have read it already, what did you think of it? Ed Turner astrovax!elt ------------------------------ Date: 5 Jul 84 9:55:54-PDT (Thu) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: hplabs!hao!noao!astrovax!elt @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: Dyson's New Book WEAPONS AND HOPE I have just finished reading Freeman Dyson's new book WEAPONS AND HOPE about the nuclear arms problem. I recommend it very strongly to anyone interested in this topic. It is, in my experience, absolutely unique in its point of view and approach. I expect that essentially everyone will find themselves stimulated and challenged by some of the arguments Dyson advances, particularly from the historical metaphors and comparisons he presents. Basically the book refuses to take either of the two familiar points of view about nuclear weapons which it identifies as the warrior's (detached, rational, and perhaps fasinated) and the victim's (involved, emotional, and perhaps despairing). It instead seeks some middle ground upon which these two views can meet and relate to one another. Neither view is taken to be "correct" but the strengths and inadequacies of both are explored. This is the best I can do at a *general* description of the book. It also is full of fascinating material about the evolution of our current situation, the Soviet view of nuclear war, civil defense, high tech defenses, militarization of space, disarmament negotiations, the history of previous peace and disarmament movements, etc. If you have read it already, what did you think of it? Ed Turner astrovax!elt ------------------------------ id AA20961; Sat, 7 Jul 84 23:15:54 pdt id AA20155; Sat, 7 Jul 84 23:16:12 pdt Date: Sat, 7 Jul 84 23:16:12 pdt From: Rick McGeer (on an h19-u) Message-Id: <8407080616.AA20155@ucbkim.ARPA> To: OAF%MIT-OZ@MIT-MC.ARPA Subject: Re: useless repeats of ancient history -- moderator please help Cc: space@MIT-MC.ARPA Worse, it's bypassing earlier gateways, for what reason I know not -- but I do know that allegra talks to ucbvax [allegra is the third of 15 hops in the path] -- for some reason hplabs passes the stuff to ucbvax, not allegra, which is why it takes forever to get to arpaland. So why doesn't allegra pass to ucbvax? -- Rick. ------------------------------ Date: 5 Jul 84 8:16:46-PDT (Thu) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: decvax!decwrl!dec-rhea!dec-dvinci!fisher @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: Fire after Discovery Shutdown? After the engine shutdown on Discovery, the TV pictures (via NBC) showed what appeared to be a ~small(?) fire in the area of the engines. The NBC man-at-KSC asked his astronaut/consultant about it. The astro replied that he thought it was a normal part of the shutdown. Does anyone know anything more about this? (By the way...while I have to give NBC credit for continuing to cover shuttle launches, their coverage is truly abysmal! Bryant Gumbel is the biggest flamer I have ever seen, with the possible exception of Jules Bergman! B.G. seemed to be nearly in a panic wondering why the astros did not get out of the shuttle. They kept trying to get the astro/consultant to admit that everyone was within an inch of loosing their life. They kept alluding to what a close thing it was...only 4 seconds later and it would have been all over. [I would like to ask them how the hell you are supposed to detect that an engine has not fired correctly before it is supposed to fire at all!]). Also, it appeared that water was being used as a fire extinguisher around the base of the shuttle after the shutdown. Will water really put out an LH2 fire? Or is it for some other purpose? Thanks, Burns UUCP: ... {decvax|allegra|ucbvax}!decwrl!rhea!dvinci!fisher ARPA: decwrl!rhea!dvinci!fisher@{Berkeley | SU-Shasta} ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 09-Jul-84 0431 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #242 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 242 Today's Topics: Re: Fire after Discovery Shutdown? Re: destruct systems trivia question ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 8 Jul 84 11:35:31 pdt From: Rick McGeer (on an h19-u) Message-Id: <8407081835.AA23663@ucbkim.ARPA> To: decvax!decwrl!dec-rhea!dec-dvinci!fisher@Berkeley, space@Mit-Mc.ARPA Subject: Re: Fire after Discovery Shutdown? Well, "normal shutdown" is a lot less exciting to a TV audience than incredible danger, and Today is consistently beneath GMA in the morning ratings. I suppose BG smelled a scoop, or a coup...and wound up in the soup. As for the fire, keep in mind that there are humongous temperatures on the pad at a launch. During the Apollo and Skylab missions, the pads were literally destroyed by the launch. The STS pad is better, but there are still fires... Rick. ------------------------------ Date: 4 Jul 84 14:59:06-PDT (Wed) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: decvax!linus!utzoo!henry @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: Re: destruct systems trivia question I asked: For 10 points, name the one (major, modern) American (NASA) rocket which did *not* have a self-destruct system, and explain why. I will post the answer in a few days. I know you've all been hanging on the edges of your seats, waiting to hear the answer, so here it is. The Apollo Lunar Module, despite being a two-stage rocket with several tons of propellant on board, had no self-destruct system. While NASA was concerned about safety in general for Apollo, they had a particular horror of Lunar Module failures that might leave astronauts alive and intact but stranded on the lunar surface, beyond all rescue. The LM was made as simple and reliable as humanly possible. The usual range safety policy definitely called for a self-destruct system, to disperse the propellants safely in the event of a launch accident. But NASA saw it as one more thing that could fail, and obviously could fail in a rather disastrous way, so they absolutely refused to include it. -- Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology {allegra,ihnp4,linus,decvax}!utzoo!henry ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 10-Jul-84 0405 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #243 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 243 Today's Topics: Shuttle A-K-O White Elephant? June 29 Science article Why the LEM didn't have a self destruct When is the next night launch? Pebbles in the Sky Re: planets and satelites Trivia Want Soviet space data? / Usenet via satellite Fire after launch abort Engine to be Replaced ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 8 Jul 1984 9:00-PDT From: dietz%USC-CSE@USC-ECL.ARPA To: space@MIT-MC.ARPA Subject: Shuttle A-K-O White Elephant? The space shuttle is starting to lose its glamour for the media. Since Discovery's launch failures, I've seen several stories in newspapers and magazines (LA Times, Time) about the shuttle's economic problems. Turn around and launch reliability problems (the Time story says 75% of the launches have been delayed -- is this correct?) have made the shuttle noncompetitive with expendable boosters, at least without massive government subsidies. So, in retrospect, where did NASA go wrong? How can launch costs be reduced? Some speculations: The space shuttle has been designed for too many missions, so it doesn't do any of them particularly well. Specifically, the shuttle is designed as both a cargo carrier (satellite launcher) and a passenger vehicle. Because it carries passengers, it must be more reliable than an unmanned cargo rocket, and has to carry life support, adding to launch weight. Because it has a large nonairtight cargo bay, it can only carry 7 people (I suppose with some modifications more could be crammed in). The shuttle's large cross sectional area is needed for launching stout satellites; a purely passenger carrying shuttle could be much smaller. Perhaps a two vessel fleet would have been better: unmanned reusable or semireusable cargo launchers and small passenger carrying vehicles. The first would be used to launch comsats and carrying space station components, the second for rotating crews, emergency rescue flights and satellite repairs. An aside: the recent AWST issue on space commercialization had a description of a company that wants to build a single stage to orbit vehicle called the Phoenix, using dual-fuel engines. The booster would be reusable, landing on rockets, not wings. They hope to get launch costs down to $10 per payload lb. ------------------------------ Date: 8 Jul 1984 11:26-PDT From: dietz%USC-CSE@USC-ECL.ARPA To: space@MIT-MC.ARPA Subject: June 29 Science article [PFD: I believe this was written before the second Discovery launch attempt.] "Estrangement on the Launch Pad" -- DOD loses affection for the space shuttle and takes up with an old flame When Congress first approved the space shuttle, it did so on the government's advice that existing rockets were an absurdly extravagent means of transporting military and civlian satellites into orbit. Buy a manned reusable ferry, said officials at the Defense Department (DOD) and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), and the costly, expendable rockets will be forsworn. Satisfied, the Congress plunked down billions of dollars so that the shuttle could meet any foreseeable need. Now, however, one of the principle partners in the venture is preparing to jump spaceship, only 3 years after the shuttle's first flight. Having decided that the spacecraft is simply incapable of living up to its billing as a flexible, reliable, and cheap transportation system, the Department of Defense has proposed -- amazingly enough -- to launch some satellites originally intended for the shuttle on a series of new expendable rockets. Although th exact specifications have not yet been determined, the lifting power and payload capacity of each rocket will be comparable to that of the shuttle, but the cost of each launch has been forecast as somewhat less. Not suprisingly, the proposal has generated considerable anger and anxiety at NASA. The anger stems from a conviction that after emerging from a long and difficult development period, the shuttle presently deserves more, not less, Defense Department support. "The space shuttle is the most reliable space transportation system ever built," NASA administrator James M. Beggs has told allies on Capitol Hill. "I believe the current fleet can meet all presently projected foreign and commericial, DOD and NASA requirements for years to come." For months, space shuttle enthusiasts, including Representative Don Fuqua (D-Fla.), chairman of the House Science and Technology Committee, have been lobbying vigorously to kill the Pentagon proposal. Anxiety at NASA stems largely from recognition that the proposal is likely to win approval anyway. As powerful as NASA's allies are, the Pentagon's are even more powerful. The agency fear is that a small withdrawal of payloads from the shuttle to expendable rockets could easily expand to a substantial migration. The difficulty is that every time a payload is removed from the shuttle manifest, the actual cost of ferrying the remaining payloads increases. Already facing serious competition from the European Space Agency's Ariane program, NASA may thus face the disagreeable choice of increasing its rates and pricing itself out of the commercial market, or making up the loss with funds from other space programs. "Am I worried about this possibility?" says Chester Lee, the director of space shuttle customer services. "You bet I am." Although Pentagon officials claim that they will remove no more than 10 satellites from the shuttle manifest, hardly anyone in Washington believes them. One reason is that more than 10 rockets will be produced. Another is that the primary candidates for rocket launching are communications and early warning satellites that come in constellations of 3, 6 and 7. Other payloads are also under consideration, and the Air Force is apparently having a tough time deciding among them. A third reason is that the Pentagon wants to start using rockets in 1988, when the price of sending payloads on the shuttle could jump sharply, from roughly $30 million to as much as $100 million per flight, as existing NASA subsidies are phased out. Taking this into consideration, a congressman recently asked Edward C. Aldridge, Jr., the under secretary of the Air Force, whether the Pentagon would have the option of removing all payloads from the shuttle in 1988. Aldridge replied, "That option would exist, yes sir. Whether or not we would exercise it would depend opon the cost to us to modify additional payloads to go on the [expendable rocket]." To NASA, the proposal to build new rockets seems particularly cruel because the agency has exerted enormous effort to win the Pentagon's business over the past decade. During its early development, the shuttle's shape was altered so that it could traverse the distance demanded by military requirements; the payload bay was expanded to hold unwieldy intelligence satellites; and the state of the art engines were designed specifically to lift weighty military payloads. Roughly a billion dollars is presently being expended on shuttle weight reductions and engine improvements so that these goals will be met. In exchange for these commitments, NASA won a pledge in the late 1970's that the Pentagon would itself contribute more than $15 billion to the shuttle program and allow it to become the exclusive transportation system for military payloads. This pledge was reiterated by Pentagon officials at several congressional hearings and codified in the National Space Policy, a document signed by President Reagan in 1982. "Expendable launch vehicle operations shall be continued by the United States Government @i the capabilities fo the [shuttle] are sufficient to meet [Pentagon] needs and obligations," the policy states (emphasis added). Although NASA fervently believes this bargain can be met by 1988, the Pentagon strongly disagrees, on two principle grounds. One claim is simply that the program's terrible track record casts grave doubt on NASA's assurances. "We're looking at essentially a change in the conditions under which we signed up to that original agreement," says Aldridge, an aeronautical engineer. NASA has thus far failed to launch most of its missions on time; it has vastly exceeded cost projections; and it has failed to provide a flexible choice of 5 shuttle orbiters (NASA and the Pentagon agree that only two will be capable of transporting the heaviest military payloads to geosynchronous orbit). "All of these are new factors that really only came to light in the last year or two," Aldridge says. "If things worked perfectly, which they do not ... could we do with the shuttle? Absolutely ... The question is, do we want to depend on things working perfectly for the future? ... Right now, we do not have a reliable, responsive launch capability for the future." Specifically, the Air Force says it expected that each shuttle could be reflown within 7 days, that military payloads could be quickly and easily loaded on board, and that total launch costs would be one-third those of an expendable rocket. Instead, the minimum shuttle turnaround time will probably be 40 days, "payload integration is more time consuming and technically difficult than previously thought," missions have to be scheduled far in advance, and launch costs are equal to or greater than comparable rockets. A space policy document approved by Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger in February concludes that, as a result, total reliance on the shuttle "represents an unacceptable national security risk," and unmanned, expendable rockets -- which "offer a high degree of requirements satisfaction, low technical risk, and reasonable schedule availability" -- are needed to satisfy DOD needs. "I'm sorry, I can't accept that," responds Chester Lee at NASA. "They watched as the program was cut to four vehicles, and they were onboard throughout that period. They don't need a 7-day turnaround time -- 7 days for what you ask them. Frankly, they couldn't get their own payloads ready for launch that quickly. We're making damn good progress getting the turnaround down to 28 days. How can they predict it will be 40 days? We work in the business and we know what we're doing. As to cost, it's true, we told them in an official letter that it could go as high as $100 million. But we might bill only for launch materials and services, which would be roughly half that amount." Back at the Pentagon, however, another, more worrisome complaint arises. The shuttle is simply unsafe, various officials suggest. Minor mishaps are predictable, catastrophic accidents are likely, and the entire fleet could be grounded at any time. "What if it lands sideways? What if the auxiliary power units catch fire as it comes in?" speculates Colonel William Barlow, an aide to under secretary Aldridge. "What if it crashed on launch? What if it was sabotaged?" adds Dennis Granato, an aide to the Pentagon's top scientist. This fear is butressed, the Air Force says, by a 1982 RAND Corporation study, which flatly predicts that between one and three of the billion dollar shuttle orbiters will be lost to accident during the lifetime of the program. [Footnote: A spokesman for the RAND Corporation cautions that this was only a preliminary analysis based on highly conjectural statistics.] Additonal evidence along these lines is supplied by the congressional testimony of Willis Hawkins, who recently chaired NASA's Aerospace Safety Advisory Board. "One of these days," Hawkins told the House Science and Technology Committee in April, "we're going to lay up a shuttle for a substantial amount of time." He complained in particular that the shuttle's "rotating machinery, the hydrogen and oxygen pumps are very, very marginal;" that "the shuttle landing gear comes up to its design load almost every landing ... I think there's just not enough margin there;" that "a lot of the parts and pieces on the shuttle could stand some reassessment;" that the shuttle's auxiliary power units, needed for steering in ascent and reentry, are susceptible to fuel leaks and early breakdowns; and that NASA still tests and certifies shuttle components haphazardly. NASA responds by discounting the enduring significance of these problems and by insisting that DOD needs can be accomodated even if a shuttle vehicle is lost. "We feel we can support them anyway, with a minimum of inconvenience," Lee says. "They have launch priority. Besides, if they're so concerned about it, why don't they support the construction of a fifth shuttle orbiter?" Because, Pentagon officials curtly say, that would simply be more of the same. Under DOD's initial plan, the new expendable rockets were to be purchased under a highly unusual arrangement whereby the Air Force could put off any payment until the construction was complete, at which point all contractor costs would be reimbersed. In so doing, the program could have bypassed congressional appropriations committees until 1988. In May, however, the plan was withdrawn at the direction of the Office of Management and Budget, whic stepped in at NASA's request. "The idea hadn't gone through channels," a senior Administration official explains. "The funding plan was clearly unorthodox and potentially a management disaster." But a new, more straightforward financing plan is now being formulated, and White House sources predict that this time the idea will win the necessary sanctions. Already two aerospace firms, Martin Marietta and General Dynamics, have submitted bids for the work. Even NASA sees that the die is cast. Recently, the agency has publicly suggested that if the Pentagon insists on building a new rocket, it do so with shuttle derived hardware. This would help cut shuttle development and launch costs and provide a bridge to the agency's much desired "heavy-lift vehicle" -- an unmanned cargo ship for space station materials and equipment, as well as manned planetary exploration, and the construction of a base on the moon. The Pentagon, however, is resisting NASA's compromise, partly out of skepticism that the shuttle-derived vehicle will be ready by 1988, and partly out of a simple desire to control the program by itself. Several months ago, the House and Senate appropriations committees requested an assessment of the competing proposals by the National Academy of Sciences. The study, to be chaired by Robert Fossum, a former director of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency who is now dean of the school of engineering and applied science at Southern Methodist University, will be completed by 1 September. Whichever rocket is built, the shuttle is in for some rough competition. Although intended primarily for the heaviest military payloads, the new rocket may also be capable of cheaply hoisting both lightweight and heavy commericial payloads. Separately, the Air Force is studying a plan to refurbish 56 old Titan II missiles for use with lightweight military payloads. And $2.8 million in the Air Force budget is allocated to preliminary design of a manned spaceplane, similar to the shuttle but capable of lifting off from a conventional airfield on short notice and circling the globe in 90 minutes. NASA officials are justifiably concerned that the potential withdrawal of the shuttle's single biggest customer will convey a strong, worrisome message to its commercial clients. Yet they can hardly deny that the shuttle has thus far failed to live up to its promise. "Somebody made a big mistake long ago," says the senior Reagan Administration official. The ironies were noted by Representative Kenneth MacKay, a first-term Democratic congressman from Gainesville, Florida, during Aldridge's recent congressional testimony. "We have put the rest of the space research program back a decade trying to get the shuttle in gear, and find that the military basically sees good reasons why the shuttle [is] not a crucial thing ... Maybe this is the first time we have [had] ... a realistic assessment of the shuttle system. Maybe we've designed a dinosaur. What will it be used for if you and the other commercial users decide that we're going to expendables? What will it be used for except for the occasional recovery of something ... for the Smithsonian?" Twenty billion dollars later, these are all good questions. -- R. Jeffrey Smith ------ [PFD: RAND predicts 1-3 shuttles will prang!?! If there's no strong economic justification for the shuttle that could make Congress ground the fleet permanently. I expect vicious congressional investigations in a few years.] ------------------------------ Date: 9 Jul 1984 13:37-PDT From: dietz%USC-CSE@USC-ECL.ARPA To: space@MIT-MC.ARPA Cc: decvax!linus!henry@UCB-VAX.ARPA Subject: Why the LEM didn't have a self destruct What!? The LEM didn't have a self-destruct? How irresponsible! Think of all the lives that could have been lost had it crashed on an inhabited part of the moon's surface. ------------------------------ Date: 30 Jun 84 8:45:26-PDT (Sat) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: hplabs!sdcrdcf!sdcsvax!akgua!mcnc!duke!ucf-cs!jeff @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: When is the next night launch? Could someone mail me the date of the next scheduled night launch? Thanks in advance. ------------------------------ Date: 8 Jul 1984 9:58-PDT From: dietz%USC-CSE@USC-ECL.ARPA To: space@MIT-MC.ARPA Subject: Pebbles in the Sky How fast would small objects in GEO decay? Certainly not in one or two orbits. Atmospheric drag is nil at that altitude. And satellites in GEO are not all in exactly the same orbit; radii can vary by several km. While we're on the subject of ruining GEO: did you know a US nuclear explosion in near earth space in the 1960's injected electrons into the magnetosphere that were still detectable ten years later? Charged particles in the magnetosphere are trapped very effectively by "magnetic mirrors" at the earth's poles. I wonder how big an accelerator you'd need to raise radiation levels there to unacceptable levels? ------------------------------ Date: 28 Jun 84 20:01:27-PDT (Thu) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: ihnp4!pegasus!gsw @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: Re: planets and satelites The currently accepted data for the satellites in the solar system as presented in July 1983 at the International Astronomical Union Colloquium No. 77 (Natural Satellites) was presented in Sky and Telescope, November 1983. I have reproduced part of it below. The information given in S&T does not include the masses of the satellites but does include their orbital radius, orbital period, eccentricity, inclination, apparent magnitude and radius. Other information may be available from the I.A.U. Data for the planets is easy to find. Here are the radii for the known satelites. Parenthetic values are uncertain by at least 10 percent. Parenthetic names await approval by the IAU. Compound radii are the values for the "best-fit" triaxial ellipsoid (for those of a strange shape.) Radius (km.) EARTH Moon 1,738 MARS MI Phobos 14 11 9 MII Deimos (8) 6 (5) JUPITER (J16) (Metis) (20) (J15) (Adrastea) 12 10 8 JV Amalthea 135 85 75 JXIV Thebe 55 ? 45 JI Io 1,815 JII Europa 1,569 JIII Ganymede 2,631 JIV Callisto 2,400 JXIII Leda (5) JVI Himalia (90) JX Lysithea (10) JVII Elara (40) JXII Ananke (10) JXI Carme (15) JVIII Pasiphae (20) JIX Sinope (15) SATURN (SXV) (Atlas) (19) ? (13) 1980 S 27 70 (50) (37) 1980 S 26 (55) (42) (33) SX Janus 110 95 80 SXI Epimetheus (70) (57) (50) SI Mimas 196 SII Enceladus 250 SIII Tethys 530 SXIII Telesto ? (12) (11) SXIV Calipso (15) (12) (8) SIV Dione 560 1980 S 6 (18) ? (<15) SV Rhea 765 SVI Titan 2,575 SVII Hyperion 175 117 (100) SVIII Iapetus 730 SIX Phoebe 110 URANUS UV Miranda (200) UI Ariel 665 UII Umbriel 555 UIII Titania 800 UIV Oberon 815 NEPTUNE NI Triton (1,750) NII Nereid (200) PLUTO PI Charon (500) Gordon "returning to longtitude zero" Watson ------------------------------ Date: 6 Jul 84 11:32:00-PDT (Fri) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: hplabs!hao!seismo!cmcl2!lanl-a!ths @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: Trivia O' Henry....that was a trick question! The LEM was hardly a "major" piece of Apollo hardware being less than 1% of the Saturn V launch weight. No doubt there were two people on each flight that thought otherwise. Your reference to the LEM as a "modern" rocket was also a bit questionable, since the LEM hasn't flown in the past twelve years. I would guess that since there wasn't anyone on the Lunar surface that needed protecting from an errant missile a self destruct system was not seriously considered. While your thinking up another trivia, let me run one up the flag pole...."what was the first missile to fly using gimbaled engines for control". This was also perhaps the first liquid fueled rocket to employ the cluster concept since it was powered by four engines. ------------------------------ Date: 6 Jul 84 9:46:51-PDT (Fri) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: hplabs!ames-lm!eugene @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: Want Soviet space data? / Usenet via satellite A month ago, I posted a summary of a presentation by Marcia Smith of the Library on Congress on Soviet space. I have received a copy of her viewgraphs and will post [lots of typing] significant tables and Soviet 'names': satellites, launch sites, and others, if I get at least six or seven requests to do so. Also, since the time of Usenix and the Weinstein propsal to circulate net.news via satellite, I see than Danny Cohen at USC-ISI just released a paper on Real Time Packet Video via Satellite for those still interested. --eugene miya NASA Ames Res. Ctr. {hplabs,menlo70,dual,icase,research,hao}!ames-lm!aurora!eugene emiya@ames-vmsb.ARPA ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 10 Jul 84 0:13:46 EDT From: Joe Pistritto To: Space-Enthusiasts@mit-mc.ARPA Subject: Fire after launch abort As the article in Aviation Week which I summarized part of earlier mentioned, there was indeed fire around Discovery after the abort, it was caused by Hydrogen venting from the unstarted engine, (which was being cycled into a firing sequence when the shutdown occurred, with the fuel valve aready 10% open). Also, to control pressures, the fuel and oxidyzer line valves were alternately closed and opened to allow excess pressure to vent. The fire was merely this gas flaring off around the pad. Since the shuttle is covered with heat resistant tiles, it was in no danger, but some of the control wiring to/from the gantry tower (as well as the tower itself, and supporting structure under Discovery), probably was. Hence the use of the water deluge system to suppress the fire. There were numerous times in the 20 minutes after abort when the fire detectors on level 1 and 2 of the gantry tower illuminated lights in the firing room indication fire however, so it was a real problem. (It was very difficult to see the flames in TV or still photographs though, as gas fires are typically very thin flames, (although sometimes very large in size)). -JCP- ------------------------------ Date: 29 Jun 84 13:37:44-PDT (Fri) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: decvax!genrad!grkermit!masscomp!clyde!burl!ulysses!allegra!alice!alb @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: Engine to be Replaced A simulated ignition of Discovery's Number 3 engine yesterday yielded no problems; the only unusual thing found was a tiny foreign particle on a cable connector. Due to the inconclusive troubleshooting, NASA has decided that it would be more time efficient to replace the entire engine. On Monday, the Number 3 engine will be replaced with the engine that used to be Discovery's Number 1 engine until it, itself, was replaced last month due to a now-fixed loose fuel pump thermal shield. NASA plans to reschedule the launch next week, with 16 and 18 July being considered as possible launch dates. ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 11-Jul-84 0406 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #244 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 244 Today's Topics: Re: planets and satelites Re: planets and satelites Re: Sea Launched Missles discovery Re: Trivia Question #2 Re: June 29 Science article Re: Pebbles in the Sky Shuttle Television Receiver Info Request ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 28 Jun 84 19:57:44-PDT (Thu) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: ihnp4!houxm!hogpc!pegasus!gsw @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: Re: planets and satelites The currently accepted data for the satellites in the solar system as presented in July 1983 at the International Astronomical Union Colloquium No. 77 (Natural Satellites) was presented in Sky and Telescope, November 1983. I have reproduced part of it below. The information given in S&T does not include the masses of the satellites but does include their orbital radius, orbital period, eccentricity, inclination, apparent magnitude and radius. Other information may be available from the I.A.U. Data for the planets is easy to find. Here are the radii for the known satelites. Parenthetic values are uncertain by at least 10 percent. Parenthetic names await approval by the IAU. Compound radii are the values for the "best-fit" triaxial ellipsoid (for those of a strange shape.) EARTH Moon 1,738 MARS MI Phobos 14 11 9 MII Deimos (8) 6 (5) JUPITER (J16) (Metis) (20) (J15) (Adrastea) 12 10 8 JV Amalthea 135 85 75 JXIV Thebe 55 ? 45 JI Io 1,815 JII Europa 1,569 JIII Ganymede 2,631 JIV Callisto 2,400 JXIII Leda (5) JVI Himalia (90) JX Lysithea (10) JVII Elara (40) JXII Ananke (10) JXI Carme (15) JVIII Pasiphae (20) JIX Sinope (15) SATURN (SXV) (Atlas) (19) ? (13) 1980 S 27 70 (50) (37) 1980 S 26 (55) (42) (33) SX Janus 110 95 80 SXI Epimetheus (70) (57) (50) SI Mimas 196 SII Enceladus 250 SIII Tethys 530 SXIII Telesto ? (12) (11) SXIV Calipso (15) (12) (8) SIV Dione 560 1980 S 6 (18) ? (<15) SV Rhea 765 SVI Titan 2,575 SVII Hyperion 175 117 (100) SVIII Iapetus 730 SIX Phoebe 110 URANUS UV Miranda (200) UI Ariel 665 UII Umbriel 555 UIII Titania 800 UIV Oberon 815 NEPTUNE NI Triton (1,750) NII Nereid (200) PLUTO PI Charon (500) Gordon "returning to longtitude zero" Watson ------------------------------ Date: 28 Jun 84 19:41:30-PDT (Thu) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: ihnp4!houxm!hogpc!pegasus!gsw @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: Re: planets and satelites The currently accepted data for the satellites in the solar system as presented in July 1983 at the International Astronomical Union Colloquium No. 77 (Natural Satelites) was presented in Sky and Telescope, November 1983. I have reproduced part of it below. The information given in S&T does not include the masses of the satellites but does include their orbital radius, orbital period, eccentricity, inclination, apparent magnitude and radius. Other information may be available from the I.A.U. Data for the planets is easy to find. Parenthetic values are uncertain by at least 10 percent. Parenthetic names await approval by the IAU. Compound radii are the values for the "best-fit" triaxial ellipsoid (for those of a strange shape.) EARTH Moon 1,738 MARS MI Phobos 14 11 9 MII Deimos (8) 6 (5) JUPITER (J16) (Metis) (20) (J15) (Adrastea) 12 10 8 JV Amalthea 135 85 75 JXIV Thebe 55 ? 45 JI Io 1,815 JII Europa 1,569 JIII Ganymede 2,631 JIV Callisto 2,400 JXIII Leda (5) JVI Himalia (90) JX Lysithea (10) JVII Elara (40) JXII Ananke (10) JXI Carme (15) JVIII Pasiphae (20) JIX Sinope (15) SATURN (SXV) (Atlas) (19) ? (13) 1980 S 27 70 (50) (37) 1980 S 26 (55) (42) (33) SX Janus 110 95 80 SXI Epimetheus (70) (57) (50) SI Mimas 196 SII Enceladus 250 SIII Tethys 530 SXIII Telesto ? (12) (11) SXIV Calipso (15) (12) (8) SIV Dione 560 1980 S 6 (18) ? (<15) SV Rhea 765 SVI Titan 2,575 SVII Hyperion 175 117 (100) SVIII Iapetus 730 SIX Phoebe 110 URANUS UV Miranda (200) UI Ariel 665 UII Umbriel 555 UIII Titania 800 UIV Oberon 815 NEPTUNE NI Triton (1,750) NII Nereid (200) PLUTO PI Charon (500) Gordon "returning to longtitude zero" Watson ------------------------------ Date: 3 Jul 84 18:23:13-PDT (Tue) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: hplabs!ames-lm!al @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: Re: Sea Launched Missles It is truely frightening that someone should seriously propose a bunch of killer robots that must actively be kept in check to prevent nuclear attack. I'm refering, of course, to the robot nuclear subs that surface every once in a while and check for a radio signal. If the signal is not there they begin their attack. When dealing with something as essential as our survival, I believe we should strive for passive systems (greater reliability) and should never give up human control of the nuclear button. ------------------------------ Date: 10 Jul 1984 11:38:12-EDT From: Dale.Amon at CMU-RI-FAS Subject: discovery One of our PghL5 people was in the control room (by invitation of a friend) during the whole thing. His impression was that nobody was really in control or knew what was happening for several minutes. They had ground crews stalled half way between safety and the Discovery, not knowing whether to run or go back. The evacuation decision may have been very close, in which case the astronauts take a wire ride into to a little concrete bunker. I would say that the ground crew had need of judicious use of several rolls of toilet paper at about that time... ------------------------------ Date: 10 Jul 1984 15:19-EST From: Edward.Tecot@CMU-CS-H.ARPA Subject: Re: Trivia Question #2 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Could that be the Atlas? Developed at Ames I think? _emt ------------------------------ id AA05430; Tue, 10 Jul 84 10:28:43 pdt id AA23183; Tue, 10 Jul 84 10:28:43 pdt Date: Tue, 10 Jul 84 10:28:43 pdt From: Rick McGeer (on an aaa-60-s) Message-Id: <8407101728.AA23183@ucbkim.ARPA> To: dietz%USC-CSE@USC-ECL.ARPA, space@MIT-MC.ARPA Subject: Re: June 29 Science article What was the basis of Rand's figures? How did they get reliable numbers for probability of component failure? ------------------------------ id AA05494; Tue, 10 Jul 84 10:31:08 pdt id AA23268; Tue, 10 Jul 84 10:31:08 pdt Date: Tue, 10 Jul 84 10:31:08 pdt From: Rick McGeer (on an aaa-60-s) Message-Id: <8407101731.AA23268@ucbkim.ARPA> To: dietz%USC-CSE@USC-ECL.ARPA, space@MIT-MC.ARPA Subject: Re: Pebbles in the Sky What US nuclear explosion in the 60's -- I don't think that the US has had any atmospheric explosions since the 50's, and as far as I know there have never been any nuclear explosions in space... ------------------------------ Message-ID: <13104@Wayne-MTS> Date: Sun, 8 Jul 84 23:38:38 EDT From: Michael_D'Alessandro%Wayne-MTS%UMich-MTS.Mailnet@MIT-MULTICS.ARPA To: space@MIT-MC.ARPA Subject: Shuttle Television Receiver Info Request I'm interested in receiving space shuttle television broadcasts directly on my TV. I recently heard of a low frequency receiver attachment you can put on your TV to receive shuttle television transmissions. Apparently, this is a $14 device you hook on to your TV antenna where it connects to the TV. What you see are the TV broadcasts shown on the news - the shuttle broadcasts television images to substations on earth, and the substations relay them around the world at very low frequencies. Does anyone have any information on such a device - where can I obtain one, and for how much? Has anyone used one? Michael_D'Alessandro%Wayne.MTS%UMich.MTS.Mailnet@MIT-Multics ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 12-Jul-84 0404 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #245 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 245 Today's Topics: Apollo Film Question ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 11 Jul 1984 09:27-EST From: James.Sherman@CMU-CS-SPICE.ARPA Subject: Apollo Film Question To: space@mit-mc Message-Id: <458400456/jss@CMU-CS-SPICE> I have seen several times, movies taken from the second stage of an Apollo, looking aft, showing the first stage separating and drifting off toward Earth. Usually the film continues and the viewer sees the separation ring also being ejected and flying off. How did NASA get these pictures? I thought that the 2nd stage burned up upon reentry. Also, I heard that Discovery failed an engine test on tuesday (7/10). Any confirmation??? - jss ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 13-Jul-84 0405 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #246 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 246 Today's Topics: New Discovery Launch Date Pentagon dissatisfied with Shuttle Discovery launch date announced Length of Neptune's day measured RE nuclear tests in space Re: RE nuclear tests in space Mailing list Re: Discovery status and Bob Truax Re: Discovery status and Bob Truax ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 12 Jul 84 11:48 PDT From: ANDERSON.ES@XEROX.ARPA Subject: New Discovery Launch Date To: Space@MIT-MC.ARPA cc: Anderson.ES@XEROX.ARPA NASA is currently holding a press conference right now, and has announced that Discovery's maiden voyage will launch no earlier than August 24. The mission will be a combination of the 41D and 41E missions with most of the payload being from 41D. The 41D crew will fly the mission, with the 41E crew being assigned to a later mission. Craig Anderson Xerox Corp. 213-536-7299 ------------------------------ Date: 10 Jul 1984 1356-EDT From: John Redford To: space at MC cc: redford at SHORTY Subject: Pentagon dissatisfied with Shuttle Message-ID: <"MS10(2124)+GLXLIB1(1136)" 12030246264.33.583.7769 at DEC-MARLBORO> So the Pentagon is talking about bowing out of the Shuttle program? I can't blame the NASA people for their frustration! The Shuttle was reworked extensively for the Pentagon's sake, and now they are giving them the shaft. For the military to complain about cost and reliability problems is enough to make one choke. Who is it who builds million-dollar tanks that only run a hundred miles between breakdowns? Who is it who can only keep half of their fifty million dollar fighters flying at any one time? The Pentagon is dreaming if they think they can equal the Shuttle's cost and performance combination by 1988. The Shuttle is already well down the learning curve. Building a booster from scratch in four years that will beat it is grossly optimistic. Look at the Ariane program. That was begun in the mid-70's and they still blow up on the launch pad. I suspect that a power play is going on here. The missile people are probably unhappy that most of their launches are going to be done by civilians. They tell people that they are uneasy about the Shuttle's well-publicized difficulties, and then put forth a proposal that protects their own turf. NASA tried to head off this kind of manuevering by giving the Air Force their own shuttle at Vandenburg, but I guess someone was not cut in for enough of the action. John Redford -------- ------------------------------ Date: 12 Jul 84 1407 PDT From: Ross Finlayson Subject: Discovery launch date announced To: space@MIT-MC.ARPA a106 0934 12 Jul 84 PM-Space Shuttle,330 Two Flights to be Combined for August Mission By HOWARD BENEDICT AP Aerospace Writer CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) - NASA announced today it will combine space shuttle Discovery's first and second flights into a single mission and launch the ship on Aug. 24. The decision was announced by Jesse Moore, acting shuttle director, at a news conference in Washington. The conference was monitored by reporters here and at other space agency centers. By flying a combined mission, NASA will eliminate one shuttle flight and keep the shuttle schedule on track. Officials had been concerned about bunching up the schedule, which accelerates to a rate of one launch a month in October. The first attempt to launch Discovery on its maiden flight was scrubbed June 25, just nine minutes before liftoff, because of a faulty computer. The next day, a computer detected a valve failure and ordered shutdown of the engine start sequence just four seconds before the planned blastoff. Shuttle managers started seriously considering a combined mission last week and were ready to announce that decision Monday when another complication arose: A Star-48 rocket nozzle failed in a test chamber at the McDonnell Douglas plant in St. Louis. Star-48 rockets are on the two communications satellites which are to be added to the cargo of the combined mission, and their owners, Satellite Business Systems and AT&T, did not want to commit to flight until the problem was understood. The problem has not been completely resolved, but it is believed the failure was the result of test conditions and not a nozzle defect. If it turns out to be a nozzle problem, the sources said the two satellites still could be removed from the manifest, with Discovery then being launched with its original flight plan. Work crews here have been directed to prepare to roll Discovery from the launch pad back to a hangar on Saturday so the two new satellites can be loaded in the cargo bay. The combined mission will keep a Leasat communications satellite, a solar panel package and a miniature drug factory from the first manifest and add the two communications satellites. Pushed off to later flights will be a large Earth-mapping camera from Flight 1 and a second Hughes Communications Leasat satellite from Flight 2. ap-ny-07-12 1234EDT ********** ------------------------------ Date: 12 Jul 84 1410 PDT From: Ross Finlayson Subject: Length of Neptune's day measured To: space@MIT-MC.ARPA a026 0118 12 Jul 84 PM-Neptune Clouds,520 Photos Allow First Direct Measurement Of Neptune's Length of a Day Laserphoto LA3 By LEE SIEGEL AP Science Writer PASADENA, Calif. (AP) - The clearest photographs yet of Neptune and its giant clouds have enabled scientists for the first time to precisely determine the length of a day on the solar system's eighth planet - 17 hours and 50 minutes. The new photographs show three 5,000-mile-diameter cloud patches in Neptune's outer atmosphere in the planet's middle latitudes. The clouds are believed to rotate at the same speed as the entire planet, so the photos ''allowed us to measure the length of the day on Neptune by watching cloud features move all the way around,'' Richard J. Terrile, a Jet Propulsion Laboratory scientist, said Wednesday. Terrile said it's the first time scientists have directly measured the length of a day on Neptune. ''These are some of the clearest pictures ever taken of Neptune,'' he said. ''... It's the first time we've been able to see the rotation of the clouds in Neptune directly.'' Previous observations by telescope showed changes in the brightness of sunlight reflected by Neptune's clouds as the planet rotated - changes that led scientists to conclude that a day on the planet lasted somewhere between 17 and 18 1/2 hours, Terrile said. The latest series of photos, while still fuzzy by earthly standards, clearly shows the cloud patches and their movement as the planet rotates. Terrile said he calculated that a day on Neptune is about 17 hours and 50 minutes long. The clouds, probably made of frozen methane, likely are relatively fixed features of Neptune's atmosphere, like the giant red spot in Jupiter's atmosphere, Terrile said. So the clouds' 17-hour, 50-minute rotation corresponds with the rotation speed of the planet, he added. But if winds make the clouds move at a different speed than the planet itself, the actual length of day could be different, Terrile said. Even newer photographs of Neptune await examination to determine if the clouds remain stable, he said. Neptune, at a distance of nearly 3 billion miles from the sun, is not visible to the naked eye on Earth, even though it is the fourth largest of the solar system's nine planets with a diameter of 31,000 miles. By comparison, Earth's diameter measures some 8,000 miles. Jet Propulsion Laboratory operates America's unmanned space exploration program for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. JPL scientists expect to learn much more about Neptune in August 1989, when the Voyager 2 spacecraft encounters the planet and its moons. Terrile and Bradford A. Smith of the University of Arizona took the detailed photographs of Neptune in May 1983 using the du Pont telescope at the Carnegie Institution's Las Campas Observatory in Chile. The photographs, which recorded light at nearly infrared wavelengths invisible to the human eye, were not released until Wednesday because ''it takes a long time to interpret them'' and the researchers were busy with other studies, Terrile said. Researchers already believed clouds existed on Neptune, but Terrile said the latest photos were ''exciting because clearly there's evidence of weather patterns in the (planet's) atmosphere.'' ap-ny-07-12 0418EDT ********** ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 12 Jul 84 17:48:17 EDT From: John Heimann Subject: RE nuclear tests in space To: space@mit-mc.arpa In 1962, prior to the Limited NUclear Test Ban Treaty, the US detonated one and the Soviet Union three nuclear weapons at high altitude. It's been several years since I took a course on arms control, but I believe that the US test was code-named ALOHA and took place at a 100 mile altitude. As I recall these three tests significantly increased the density of high energy particles in the Van Allen radiation belts. John ------------------------------ id AA16249; Thu, 12 Jul 84 16:03:39 pdt id AA05471; Thu, 12 Jul 84 16:03:01 pdt Date: Thu, 12 Jul 84 16:05:02 pdt From: Rick McGeer (on an aaa-60-s) Message-Id: <8407122305.869@ucbchip.ARPA> id AA00869; Thu, 12 Jul 84 16:05:02 pdt To: jheimann@BBNCCY.ARPA, space@mit-mc.ARPA Subject: Re: RE nuclear tests in space Cc: POURNE@MIT-MC.ARPA, Hank.Walker@cmu-cs-unh.ARPA Let's wish away for a moment the Test Ban Treaty and the Space Treaty, or (better) wish that they are modified to permit Project Orion launches from earth orbit. Under those assumptions, does the data from the Aloha and the Soviet tests give any indication of what conditions must be met for a safe Orion-style launch? -- Rick ------------------------------ id AA16602; Thu, 12 Jul 84 16:28:07 pdt From: ihnp4!lznv!lzpa!rbr@Berkeley Date: 12 Jul 84 18:18:01 CDT (Thu) Message-Id: <8407122318.AA08556@ihnp4.ATT.UUCP> Subject: Mailing list Apparently-To: ucbvax!C70:space Dear fa.space editor, I am an employee of AT&T Information Systems in Lincroft N.J. and would like to be added to the mailing list for this digest. My vital statistics are: Name: Robert R. Barbato Company: AT&T Information Systems USnail address: 307 Middletown-Lincroft Rd Lincroft, N.J. 07738 E-mail address: ihnp4!lznv!rbr If I have sent this request to the wrong place could you please 1) forward to the guilty, if possible 2) failing that, send me some mail so I know my request has not been ignored. I don't have access to Netnews, so this is my only hope to receive the digest. Thanks. Bob Barbato Cc: rbr ------------------------------ Date: 12 Jul 1984 19:25-EST From: Hank.Walker@CMU-CS-UNH.ARPA Subject: Re: Discovery status and Bob Truax To: space@mit-mc Message-Id: <458522737/dmw@CMU-CS-UNH> McNeil/Lehrer just said tonight that the delayed Discovery mission and the next one would be combined into one mission in August. That's about all the details on the launch. They also had a commentator who felt that NASA had to get the shuttle operating reliably and on time by then end of 1985 if they didn't want to lose lots of commercial customers. They also had a real interesting piece on Bob Truax, what he's really doing, how he's doing it, and his plans. His rocket engines, like everything else, are surplus Atlas vernier engines. He had a successful test firing recently. The capsule is barely big enough to hold a person in a fetal position. The capsule is so small that the astronaut can't wear a space suit, and there is no life support. As Truax says, life support is a deep breath. He's tested a man sitting in the capsule for 30 minutes. The first flight will be a 15-minute suborbital one. The rocket is launched from the back of a barge and lands engine-end down in the water. He has actually drop-tested a mockup in the water. A few senior retired Lockheed people were interviewed. They seemed to feel that Truax wasn't totally crazy, and that a sub-orbital flight was possible, but they didn't want their son on it. ------------------------------ id AA21595; Thu, 12 Jul 84 23:03:47 pdt Date: Thu, 12 Jul 84 23:05:38 pdt From: Rick McGeer (on an h19-u) Message-Id: <8407130605.1003@ucbchip.ARPA> id AA01003; Thu, 12 Jul 84 23:05:38 pdt To: Hank.Walker@CMU-CS-UNH.ARPA, space@mit-mc Subject: Re: Discovery status and Bob Truax Cc: The astronaut on the Truax flight is certainly serious about it -- he's financing the thing to the tune of $600,000. There are other sponsors, of course. Truax may not need to many sponsors. He got his engines - 15 of them - for $125 each. Rick. ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 14-Jul-84 0406 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #247 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 247 Today's Topics: Re: Fire after Discovery Shutdown? - (nf) Computer Problem Isolated Re: Just when you thought it was going to be a dull election... Fire after Discovery Shutdown! Re: Fire after Discovery Shutdown! Re: Just when you thought it was going to be a dull election... Nuke in space, (again) Star-48 Nozzle Compounds Scheduling Problem Space Day 1984 - Big Space-Related Event in Trenton NJ ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 8 Jul 84 7:51:08-PDT (Sun) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: hplabs!sdcrdcf!sdcsvax!akgua!whuxle!spuxll!abnjh!u1100a!pyuxn!pyuxww!gamma!ulysses!allegra!alice!alb @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: Re: Fire after Discovery Shutdown? - (nf) The water system is not to prevent metal from melting. It was installed after STS-1 to help cushion the giant shockwave resulting from SRB ignition. As some may recall, it was this shockwave that ripped off most of the lost STS-1 tiles as well as bent some support structures. The water system, which begins to fire seconds before SSME ignition, shoots 100,000 gallons of water per second throughout the flame trench. Also, there are bags of water under the SSME's and SRB's. These are, of course, blown into oblivion. I don't know whether or not the water system that was used to put out the fire was this shockwave suppression system or not. Adam ------------------------------ Date: 8 Jul 84 7:43:55-PDT (Sun) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: hplabs!sdcrdcf!sdcsvax!akgua!whuxle!spuxll!abnjh!u1100a!pyuxn!pyuxww!gamma!ulysses!allegra!alice!alb @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: Computer Problem Isolated Engineers have located the source of the problem that grounded the Discovery for the first time two weeks ago. It was a broken microscopic wire on an integrated circuit in the I/O system of the backup computer. When the four main GPC's (general purpose computer) detected the failure of the backup computer, they decided to scrub the launch. The next day, of course, they did the same thing when the engine valve failed to open. ------------------------------ Date: 6 Jul 84 11:26:36-PDT (Fri) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: hplabs!sdcrdcf!sdcsvax!akgua!mcnc!rti!crm @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: Re: Just when you thought it was going to be a dull election... This LaRouche fellow may be familiar to some of you all -- did you ever get accosted by the people in airports trying to sell Fusion magazine and bumper stickers that said things like "Nuke Jane Fonda"? Yeah, those are the same people. LaRouche also has some wild economics ideas that he claims revolutionize the whole field, and used to be associated with the U.S. Labor Party (which I think he founded...) Re: the economics ideas -- the Nobel committee hasn't noticed him yet ; no doubt because of Communist influence. The best reason I can think of to not worry about him is that he has been raving for some long time, and still hasn't been able to make much impact. Still, he probably bears watching. Anybody know how to get hold of Remo and Chiun (he said obliquely)? Charlie Martin ------------------------------ Date: 8 Jul 84 8:11:00-PDT (Sun) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: hplabs!sdcrdcf!sdcsvax!akgua!whuxle!spuxll!abnjh!u1100a!pyuxn!pyuxww!gamma!ulysses!burl!clyde!watmath!wateng!pdbain @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: Fire after Discovery Shutdown! I watched the news footage of the launch, and I could see flames around the plumbing for the engines. The news commentator indicated that heat detectors then activated the sprinkler system which I saw spraying up into the engines. -peter ------------------------------ Date: 8 Jul 84 18:11:25-PDT (Sun) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: hplabs!sdcrdcf!sdcsvax!akgua!whuxle!spuxll!abnjh!u1100a!pyuxn!pyuxww!gamma!ulysses!burl!clyde!bonnie!dpw @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: Re: Fire after Discovery Shutdown! The best preflight and postflight coverage of Space Shuttle missions I've found is in Aviation Week and Space Technology. Craig Covault generally writes a multi-segment preview of a mission and tries out Shuttle hardware (MMU, CANADARM, Shuttle Simulator, etc.). The Discovery abort analysis points to potential fuel system over-pressures as the main point of concern. Hydrogen and Oxygen venting (and the resulting fire) were necessary to safe the combined engine and external tank fuel systems. The fire suppression water system was intended for use in such circumstances. At about 10 minutes after shutdown the water system was used to put out the first of several fires. Apparently there was less concern about the fires (low temperatures as far as Discovery was concerned) than preventing an explosion in the fuel system. Read Av. Week July 2 for details. David Williams (AT&T Bell Labs, Whippany NJ) whuxo!clyde!bonnie!dpw ------------------------------ Date: 11 Jul 84 23:32:54-PDT (Wed) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: hplabs!nsc!proper!mikevp @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: Re: Just when you thought it was going to be a dull election... I saw Lyndon LaRouche on TV a couple of years ago. He's one of the few political types around who really scares me. Something about his eyes... grim fanaticism. What really aggravates me is that he has filched some of my favorite soapboxes: Nuclear power, BMD, and space development. ------------------------------ Date: 13 Jul 1984 11:34:49-EDT From: Dale.Amon at CMU-RI-FAS Subject: Nuke in space, (again) I posted this same response only about a month ago. The explosion of a nuclear device in space occured circ 1961-62. It was launched from Johnston Island and if anyone cares to go library searching there was a LIFE magazine pictorial of it. The explosion was one of the last before Kennedy and Kruschev agreed to a test ban. It was also around this time that the soviets fired off a superbomb at Novaya Zemyla (airburst, not space burst!!). It was (possibly) as large as 100MT. ------------------------------ Date: 10 Jul 84 18:07:39-PDT (Tue) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: ihnp4!houxm!mhuxl!ulysses!allegra!alice!alb @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: Star-48 Nozzle Compounds Scheduling Problem Back in February, when two communications satellites, Westar-6 and Palapa-B, were placed into errant orbits, it was a Star-48 rocket nozzle that failed. Back in May, engineers at MacDonald- Douglas, which builds the solid fueled upper stage rocket, said they had solved the problem. But, just after the order had been given to begin preparations to roll Discovery back to its hangar so that two satellites from the mission after this could be loaded aboard, in a decision to combine the aborted mission with its successor, tests at MacDonald-Douglas revealed another faulty nozzle. Thus the order was rescinded, and NASA is again confused about the shuttle schedule. If MacDonald-Douglas and its customers decide to wait until more tests can be conducted, the aborted mission may launch by early August; however, the mission after that could very well be postponed several months, thus putting the whole shuttle schedule up in arms. NASA is unsure over just what to do next, and the agency has not released a date for a decision. ------------------------------ Date: 10 Jul 84 11:06:13-PDT (Tue) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: hplabs!sdcrdcf!sdcsvax!akgua!whuxle!spuxll!abnjh!u1100a!pyuxn!pyuxww!gamma!ulysses!mhuxl!mhuxm!mhuxi!charm!mam @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: Space Day 1984 - Big Space-Related Event in Trenton NJ [My mind is going, Dave. I can feel it.] ANNOUNCEMENT: On July 21, the 15th anniversary of the first landing on the Moon, there will be an all-day Space Day event at the New Jersey State Museum in Trenton. There will be speakers, planetarium shows, a video room, and movies. The schedules will be as follows: Video: 9:00-10:00 25 Years in Space: A Reprise 10:00-10:35 Skylab Science Experiments (includes: Zero-G (1974, 15 minutes) Conservation Laws in 0-G (1974, 17 minutes) ) 10:35-11:00 Shuttle Spacewalk Set to Music (by E. Leeper) 11:00-1:00 L5 Video Show STS-1 Press Conference (17 min.) STS-3 Postflight Press Conference (17 min.) STS-8 Postflight Press Conference (15 min.) The Next Frontier: Intro to L5 Society (40 min.) NASA Report: Space Colonization (5 min.) NASA Report: Space Solar Power (5 min.) Zero Gravity Gymnastics (7 min.) Jupiter and Saturn Rotation Films (14 min.) 1:00-2:00 Business in Space: Free Enterprise Reaches Out 2:00-3:00 Careers in Space Space for Women (1981, 28 min.) Where Dreams Come True (1979, 28 min.) 3:00-5:00 History of the Early Apollo Program Apollo 8: Go for TLI (1969, 22 min.) Apollo 9: Three to Make Ready (1969, 17 min.) Apollo 10: To Sort Out the Unknowns (1969, 25 min.) Eagle Has Landed: The Flight of Apollo 11 (1969, 28 min.) Speaker's Schedule 9:00-9:30 Intro to Model Rocketry, James Newquist 9:30-10:00 Model Rocketry Demo, James Newquist 10:00-11:00 The Work of the Space Studies Institute, April Whitt, Executive Director, SSI, including slides and video tape 11:00-12:00 RCA Astro-Electronics 12:00-1:00 History of the Space Program, slides&lecture by J. Striab, Prof. of Physics, Villanova 1:00-2:00 The L5 Society and Mankind's Future in Space, slides&lecture by Chuck Divine, President, North Jersey L5 2:00-3:00 The Space Shuttle Main Engines, slides&lectures by J.R. Thompson, Deputy Director, Forrestal Labs, former Chief Engineer for Space Shuttle 3:00-4:00 Intro to Model Rocketry, James Newquist 4:00-4:30 Model Rocketry Demo, James Newquist Planetarium Schedule 10:00-11:00 Movies: The Sunbeam Connection, The Weather Machine, and other science shorts 11:00-12:00 Planetarium Show: Countdown: 25 Years in Space 12:00-1:00 Planetarium Show: Summer Stars for Tots 1:00-2:00 Planetarium Show: Countdown: 25 Years in Space 2:00-3:00 Planetarium Show: Summer Stars for Tots 3:00-3:30 Movie: TRON 3:30-4:00 Planetarium Show: Coundown: 25 Years in Space This event is brought to you by the North Jersey L5 Society, makers of fine space-related events, and by the New Jersey State Museum of Science, where the Moon can be yours for a few dollars admission. DIRECTIONS: >From the North: Route 29 South to Calhoun or Willow St. Exits Route 31 South to I-95 South to Exit 1 (Trenton) Route 29 S to Calhoun or Willow St. Exits Route 1 South to Market St. Exit >From Turnpike (from North): Get off exit 9, onto Rt. 1, follow to Market St. >From East NJ Rte. 33 W to Nottingham Way to Greenwood Ave around 2 adjacent circles to Market St. >From South NJ NJ Turnpike N to Ex. 7, Rte 206 N to South Broad St. to Lalor St. to Rte 29 N (John Fitch Pkwy) I-295 to Rte 130 N to Rte 206 N, coninue as above ******* Disclaimer ******* These directions were supplied by someone else and came with a sketchy map which I obviously can't reproduce. Therefore, go at own risk. ************************** ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 15-Jul-84 0404 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #248 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 248 Today's Topics: How long will sand or pebbles stay in GOE? SPACE Digest V4 #247 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 14 Jul 84 20:04:17 PDT From: Murray.pa@XEROX.ARPA Subject: How long will sand or pebbles stay in GOE? To: Space@MIT-MC.ARPA Cc: Murray.pa@XEROX.ARPA I botched my first attempt, so here goes again... How long would sand, pebbles, bowling balls, or whatever stay in (anti)GEO? I just don't have a feel for that sort of thing. I'd guess that things like solar radiation are area dependent and mass (stability) is volume dependent, so bigger things should last longer. Would they last years, centurys, ...? For that matter, how long will a satelite stay in GEO without power and/or how much power does it take to keep a satelite in the right place? ------------------------------ Date: 15 Jul 1984 00:00-PDT Sender: RMCCON@SRI-CSL Subject: SPACE Digest V4 #247 Subject: do From: Ted Anderson Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC To: SPACE@MIT-MC To: rmccon@SRI-CSL Message-ID: <[SRI-CSL]15-Jul-84 00:00:51.RMCCON> Return-Path: Date: 13 Jul 1984 11:34:49-EDT From: Dale.Amon at CMU-RI-FAS Subject: Nuke in space, (again) I posted this same response only about a month ago. The explosion of a nuclear device in space occured circ 1961-62. It was launched from Johnston Island and if anyone cares to go library searching there was a LIFE magazine pictorial of it. The explosion was one of the last before Kennedy and Kruschev agreed to a test ban. It was also around this time that the soviets fired off a superbomb at Novaya Zemyla (airburst, not space burst!!). It was (possibly) as large as 100MT. ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 16-Jul-84 0406 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #249 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 249 Today's Topics: Re: Missions Combined -- Launch Date Set Re: Fire after Discovery Shutdown? How long will a satellite stay in GEO? Re: Just when you thought it was going to be a dull election... Slip covers Re: USENET satellite Re: Fire after Discovery Shutdown? - (nf) Re: OMNI ASAT article Viewgraphs of Soviet space activities (with minor editing) Big Space-Related Event at NJ State Museum of Science, Trenton Re: OMNI ASAT article ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 13 Jul 84 6:30:06-PDT (Fri) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: ihnp4!ihlts!rjnoe @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: Re: Missions Combined -- Launch Date Set I had heard that Leasat-2 would be added to mission 51A, currently set for launch Nov. 2 and that SPARTAN-1 would be put with 41G, to launch Oct. 1. What's the real scoop? And have they made a decision whether or not 51A will really be used to rescue Westar 6 and/or Palapa B-2 or will it just deploy its Telesat of Canada comsat and run its experiments (including the GAS stuff)? -- Roger Noe ihnp4!ihlts!rjnoe ------------------------------ Date: 9 Jul 84 10:01:45-PDT (Mon) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: decvax!ittvax!dcdwest!sdcsvax!akgua!mcnc!duke!ucf-cs!giles @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: Re: Fire after Discovery Shutdown? (1): Yes, there was a small hydrogen fire in the tail of the orbiter after the aborted launch. Fire suppression equipment in the rear of the orbiter put it out without difficulty. (2): That water may have been the sound suppression system in action. I have not seen the entire launch sequence on tape yet, so I can't say that was the source of the water for sure. The sound suppression system, for those joining us late, is required because the launch pad is a giant slab of concrete. Apparently the old Saturn Vs had a relatively quiet ignition; when the SRBs of the Shuttle ignite, a *very* strong shock wave leaves the engines, hits the pad, and bounces straight back into the ET and orbiter. (Note: this was not anticipated, in part because the SRBs had not been fired on the launch pad, as the SSMEs had.) According to one of my former professors (who monitored air quality during the launch) NASA determined that the most dangerous point of STS-1 occured just a few seconds after launch -- when this echo was reverbating throughout the orbiter and ET. In fact, they found a four-foot reinforcement rod bent in the orbiter's nose. Add this to the well documented "walk" of the orbiter across the launch pad and Young & Crippen had an interesting couple of seconds. Anyway, instead of rebuilding the launch pads (out of nice fireproof soundabsorbing materials) NASA decided to dump a couple of tons of water between the Shuttle and the pad. The general idea is that the acoustical energy will be spent breaking the water drops into water vapor, instead of the Shuttle system into a giant fire-cracker. I recall that there was quite a bit of debate at the time over the usefulness of this approach, but it apparently has worked. Bruce Giles {decvax, duke}!ucf-cs!giles university of central florida giles.ucf-cs@Rand-Relay orlando, florida 32816 ------------------------------ Date: 15 Jul 1984 7:55-PDT From: dietz%USC-CSE@ECLA To: Murray.pa@XEROX.ARPA Cc: space@MIT-MC.ARPA Subject: How long will a satellite stay in GEO? Radiation pressure itself won't cause a satellite's to decay very fast, because accelerations on opposite sides of the orbit cancel out. The fuel is mainly to keep satellites at the correct longitude. When comsats have exceded their useful lives they are boosted to a somewhat larger orbit. Decay time from this orbit must be fairly long for this to work (how much bigger are these orbits?). ------------------------------ Date: 13 Jul 84 8:08:15-PDT (Fri) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: ihnp4!houxm!houxz!vax135!cornell!uw-beaver!microsoft!fluke!moriarty @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: Re: Just when you thought it was going to be a dull election... > Anybody know how to get hold of Remo and Chiun (he said obliquely)? Yes, why isn't there a master of Sinaju around when you need one? "That's the biz, sweetheart" Moriarty, aka Jeff Meyer John Fluke Mfg. Co., Inc. UUCP: {cornell,decvax,ihnp4,sdcsvax,tektronix,utcsrgv}!uw-beaver \ {allegra,gatech!sb1,hplabs!lbl-csam,decwrl!sun,ssc-vax} -- !fluke!moriarty ARPA: fluke!moriarty@uw-beaver.ARPA ------------------------------ Date: 7 Jul 84 17:53:32-PDT (Sat) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: hplabs!sdcrdcf!sdcsvax!greg @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: Slip covers I was asked this the other day, in all seriousness: "What color are the slip covers used to cover the seats in the shuttles?" I don't have any idea. Does anybody know? Tks. -- -- Greg Noel, NCR Torrey Pines Greg@sdcsvax.UUCP or Greg@nosc.ARPA ------------------------------ Date: 6 Jul 84 23:08:21-PDT (Fri) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: sun!idi!kiessig @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: Re: USENET satellite It's much simpler to use VIR space off of an existing television channel. Lauren gave a talk on this at the last Usenix conference. -- Rick Kiessig {decvax, ucbvax}!sun!idi!kiessig {akgua, allegra, amd70, burl, cbosgd, dual, ihnp4}!idi!kiessig Phone: 408-996-2399 ------------------------------ Date: 6 Jul 84 20:36:02-PDT (Fri) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: decvax!cca!ima!haddock!stevel @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: Re: Fire after Discovery Shutdown? - (nf) #R:decwrl:-234400:haddock:10400003:000:370 haddock!stevel Jul 6 11:15:00 1984 It is standard procedure to shoot water all over the thrust deflectors just below the engine starting just before launch. This help keep the metal from melting away, or just weakening too much. That is probably what you saw. I assume the engine just burned itself out once the fuel was shut off. Steve Ludlum, decvax!yale-co!ima!stevel, {amd70|ihnp4!cbosgd}!ima!stevel ------------------------------ Date: 29 Jun 84 8:23:28-PDT (Fri) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: decvax!wivax!apollo!eric @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: Re: OMNI ASAT article >The most recent issue of OMNI magazine has an article by Oberg about >a technique the Soviets could use to wipe out all satellites in >geosynchronous orbit. >Upon command, the satellite would expel its >cargo of pebbles/sand grains/etc. US satellites in geo would encounter >the objects at twice orbital velocity, once every 12 hours. What a mess that would make! GEO orbits are VALUABLE! And it would be a long time (if ever) before anyone could clean them up. Who thinks of this stuff, I wonder? Eric Peters (...decvax!wivax!apollo!eric) Apollo Computer Inc., Chelmsford, MA ------------------------------ Date: 14 Jul 84 12:27:43-PDT (Sat) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: hplabs!ames!eugene @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: Viewgraphs of Soviet space activities (with minor editing) [] Soviet Space Activities Marcia S. Smith Congressional Research Service Library of Congress Soviet Launch sites: (map) Plesetsk (near Akhangel'sk) Kapustin Yar (near Volgagrad) Tyuratam /* Each corresponds to existing US lanunch sites: one for polar, another for small, and other for most other lanuches */ Soviet Space Program Elements Unmanned scientific program Unnammed applications Unmanned military Manned civilian programs Manned military programs /* Again note parallels to partitioning, regarding parallels: note that not all parallels are do to copying, but consider physical factors such as the nature of fluid dynamics which make our shuttle and their space plane look very much alike. */ Soviet Unmanned Scientific Space Earth Orbital (On going) Kosmos /* a general designation used for failures, too */ Interkosmos (22 fls. since 1969) /*sorry no notes, forgot why diff */ Prognoz (9 fls since 1967) Lunar Luna/Lunokhod (24 fls since 1959, 3 successful sample returns, 2 rovers (lunokhods)) Zond Planetary Mars ( 7 fls) /*none suscessful*/ Venus (16 fls since 1961) /*partially successfull*/ Soviet Unmanned Applications Weather Meteor Earth Resources Kosmos and Salyut (film) /*note emphasis on film rather than imaging*/ Meteor-Priroda (scanner) /*newer trend*/ Communications Molniya Statsionar Series (1st geostat. in 1974) Raduga/Gorizont (Communication) Ekran (Broadcasting) Intersputnik organization /*guess!*/ Inmarsat Navigation Tsikada /*like US programs*/ Glonass Ocean Resources /*they have big sea ice problems, their imagery has appeared in AW&ST, so tihs is a big area for them*/ Geodesy /*like US programs*/ Current Military uses of Space Communications Navigation Weather Geodesy and Mapping Recon: (Photo, Ocean Surv., Early warning, Elect., Nuc. Exp. Detect.) Weapons Special Soviet Unmanned Programs Radar Ocean Surveillance /* an important point for FBMSubs. I asked how the Soviets did their processing (on board or ground) to which I got a "that's classified." */ FOBS /* this was included in SALT II agreements, but current Admin dropped*/ ASats /*enough said*/ Summary of Soviet manned programs Vostok (1961-1963) 6 fls:1st man, 1st woman in space Voskhod (1964-1965) 2 fls: 1st 3-man crew, 1st EVA Soyuz (1967-1981) 38 fls, 3 unmanned, 25 manned to Salyut space stations, 2 unmanned to stations, 19 of 25 manned fls were successful Soyuz T (1979-pres.) 10 manned fls, 1 manned launch failure, 1 unmanned test fl. Salyut Space station 8 launches since 1971, 6 sucessful, 5 civilian 3 military: distinction can be made by telemtry, crew composition, orbit altitude and mission. Summary of Fre Flying Soyuz missions Soyuz 1-9 (Pre-space-station): S 1: Death of Pilot Komarov on Apr. 24, 1967 S 2/3 Rendezvous between manned S 3 and unmanned S 2 S 4/5 First docking of two manned ships, crew transfer via EVA S 6/7/8 Group flight, S 6 performed first space welding, S6 and S8 were supposed to dock, but did not S 9 New world space duration record 17 days 17 hours Soyuz 12,13,16,19,22 S 12 Systems test after fatal S11 (A Kosmos) S 13 in lieu of space station (after 2 station failures) 8 day Earth Resources and astronomy mission S 16 Systems test of modified Soyuz for ASTP S 19 ASTP S 22 Earth resources with German multispectral camera 1st non-Russian equipment on manned mission Summary of Soyuz/Salyut Missions Space Stations Salyut 1,2,3,4,5,6,7, S1, K 557, S4,6,7 were civilian missions Kosmos 557 K577 was a failure. S 2,3,4 were military missions S2 was a failure Soyuz Transport Craft Soyuz 10/11 (Salyut 1) S 10 docked but could not enter S 11 sucessful 23 day 18 hour mission, but crew died on reentry of asphyxiation Soyuz 14/15 (Salyut 3) Reminder of these flights were ferry craft Soyuz 17/18A/18/20 (Salyut 4) (without solar panels) for Salyut 3,4,5,6. Soyuz 21/23/24 (Salyut 5) Soyuz 15/18A/23/25/33/Soyuz T-8 were failures/ Soyuz 20 and T-2 were unmanned tests. Soyuz 25-40 Soyuz T1-4 (Salyut 6) Soyuz 34 was unmanned replacement for 32. Soyuz T-3 was first 3man crew since S11. 10 missions carried international crews. Soyuz T5-11 (salyut 7) Soyuz T-5 crew set new duration (211 days). Soyuz T-7 launched second woman in space /*just preceded Sally Ride*/ Soyuz T10-A attempt aborted due to launch pad fire: crew used escape tower Salyut 6 Summary Launch Sept 26 1977, deorbited July 29, 1982, Second generation station with two docking ports (incuding fuel transfer) with resupply missions (Progess transport ships) and multiplew crew dockings. Kosmos 1267 docked June 1981 for 1 year of tests related to modular space station construction. Crews set new duration records of 96, 140, 175, and 185 days. 18 manned Soyuz/Soyuz T flights: 2 unmanned, 12 unmanned Progress craft (2 manned flight did not sucessfully dock 25 and 33). 9 international crews: 28 (Remek - Czech) 30 (Hermaszewski - Pol.) 31 (Jahn - East Germ.) 33 (Ivanov - Bulg) 36 (Farkas - Hung) 37 (Pham Tuan - Viet.) 38 (Tamayo Mendez - Cuba) 39 (Gurragcha - Mongolia) 40 (Prunariu - Romania) Experiments in biology, astronomy, materials processing, earth resources and photography. Salyut 7 Summary Launch Apr 19 1982, Virtually identical to S 6, 3 crews during 1982, new duration of 211 days, first French "spationaut" and second woman in space. Kosmos 1443, A multipurpose module like Kosmos 1267. Soyuz T-8 failed to dock. S T-9 stayed 149 days and installed solar panels (including one GaAs panel) Appempt to launch S T 10A crew (replacement?) failed. Soyuz T-10 crew now on board. Two of three members have performed multiple EVAs to repair malfunctioning fuel tank value. Photo of 1443 Future directions of Manned Soviet Flight Permanent Earth Orbital Station Manned Interplanetary Missions Manned Moon Missions "Super Booster" /* problem of low energy fuels, even China is using H2-02*/ Space shuttle /*and space plane, DOD terminology*/ Diagrams from Soviet Military power diagraming US Shuttle size to above vehicles Photo - Soviet Space plane recovery from I. Ocean US/USSR Comparisons /*Speaker shows viewgraph and states "You cannot just judge by numerical values" you get into deep water very quickly"*/ Total Launches 1957-1982 US 796 successes 106 failures USSR 1538 successes 187? failures Total launches 1983 US 22 USSR 98 /*It must be remembered that Soviet space technology and objectives differ. They launch very short lived, satellites, they use film rather than imagers, etc. but on the whole our systems are better built*/ Total Manned Launches since 1961 US 42 (3 to a space station, all sucessful) USSR 56 (32 to space stations, 25 sucessful, +1 launch failure) Cumulative hours in space US 29,153:06 (Longest flight 84 days) USSR 70,407:46 (longest flight 211 days*) *Does not count current Soyuz T-10/T-11 mission. /* It is this last figure which is significant, and the speaker enumerated reasons such as fuel transfer in space, materials processing, space health, etc.)*/ If you need certain other specifics, I will try to remember me as I didn't take notes (next time). If there are typos and what, not...... I spent time over three days keying this as I am not a touch tyist. Seriously->anybody have an suggestions for purchasing good optical character readers? Good meaning, works well, service is okay, etc. Is the Wang system any good? --eugene miya NASA Ames Res. Ctr. {hplabs,hao,dual}!ames!aurora!eugene ------------------------------ Date: 11 Jul 84 19:55:00-PDT (Wed) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: ihnp4!mhuxl!mhuxm!mhuxi!charm!mam @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: Big Space-Related Event at NJ State Museum of Science, Trenton [My mind is going, Dave. I can feel it.] ANNOUNCEMENT: On July 21, the 15th anniversary of the first landing on the Moon, there will be an all-day Space Day event at the New Jersey State Museum in Trenton. There will be speakers, planetarium shows, a video room, and movies. The schedules will be as follows: Video: 9:00-10:00 25 Years in Space: A Reprise 10:00-10:35 Skylab Science Experiments (includes: Zero-G (1974, 15 minutes) Conservation Laws in 0-G (1974, 17 minutes) ) 10:35-11:00 Shuttle Spacewalk Set to Music (by E. Leeper) 11:00-1:00 L5 Video Show STS-1 Press Conference (17 min.) STS-3 Postflight Press Conference (17 min.) STS-8 Postflight Press Conference (15 min.) The Next Frontier: Intro to L5 Society (40 min.) NASA Report: Space Colonization (5 min.) NASA Report: Space Solar Power (5 min.) Zero Gravity Gymnastics (7 min.) Jupiter and Saturn Rotation Films (14 min.) 1:00-2:00 Business in Space: Free Enterprise Reaches Out 2:00-3:00 Careers in Space Space for Women (1981, 28 min.) Where Dreams Come True (1979, 28 min.) 3:00-5:00 History of the Early Apollo Program Apollo 8: Go for TLI (1969, 22 min.) Apollo 9: Three to Make Ready (1969, 17 min.) Apollo 10: To Sort Out the Unknowns (1969, 25 min.) Eagle Has Landed: The Flight of Apollo 11 (1969, 28 min.) Speaker's Schedule 9:00-9:30 Intro to Model Rocketry, James Newquist 9:30-10:00 Model Rocketry Demo, James Newquist 10:00-11:00 The Work of the Space Studies Institute, April Whitt, Executive Director, SSI, including slides and video tape 11:00-12:00 RCA Astro-Electronics 12:00-1:00 History of the Space Program, slides&lecture by J. Striab, Prof. of Physics, Villanova 1:00-2:00 The L5 Society and Mankind's Future in Space, slides&lecture by Chuck Divine, President, North Jersey L5 2:00-3:00 The Space Shuttle Main Engines, slides&lectures by J.R. Thompson, Deputy Director, Forrestal Labs, former Chief Engineer for Space Shuttle 3:00-4:00 Intro to Model Rocketry, James Newquist 4:00-4:30 Model Rocketry Demo, James Newquist Planetarium Schedule 10:00-11:00 Movies: The Sunbeam Connection, The Weather Machine, and other science shorts 11:00-12:00 Planetarium Show: Countdown: 25 Years in Space 12:00-1:00 Planetarium Show: Summer Stars for Tots 1:00-2:00 Planetarium Show: Countdown: 25 Years in Space 2:00-3:00 Planetarium Show: Summer Stars for Tots 3:00-3:30 Movie: TRON 3:30-4:00 Planetarium Show: Coundown: 25 Years in Space This event is brought to you by the North Jersey L5 Society, makers of fine space-related events, and by the New Jersey State Museum of Science, where the Moon can be yours for a few dollars admission. DIRECTIONS: >From the North: Route 29 South to Calhoun or Willow St. Exits Route 31 South to I-95 South to Exit 1 (Trenton) Route 29 S to Calhoun or Willow St. Exits Route 1 South to Market St. Exit >From Turnpike (from North): Get off exit 9, onto Rt. 1, follow to Market St. >From East NJ Rte. 33 W to Nottingham Way to Greenwood Ave around 2 adjacent circles to Market St. >From South NJ NJ Turnpike N to Ex. 7, Rte 206 N to South Broad St. to Lalor St. to Rte 29 N (John Fitch Pkwy) I-295 to Rte 130 N to Rte 206 N, coninue as above ******* Disclaimer ******* These directions were supplied by someone else and came with a sketchy map which I obviously can't reproduce. Therefore, go at own risk. ************************** ------------------------------ Date: 13 Jul 84 19:01:35-PDT (Fri) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: hplabs!ames!al @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: Re: OMNI ASAT article Apparently this article claimed the Soviets could ruin GEO by putting up a retrograde sand box. Two things: if the Soviets can do it so can the U.S., second - what benefit is there for either? ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 17-Jul-84 0404 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #250 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 250 Today's Topics: Discovery Back in VAB # of satellites in earth orbit Re: Chicago Tribune Article 5 years ago today... - (nf) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 14 Jul 84 16:57:23-PDT (Sat) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: ihnp4!mhuxl!ulysses!allegra!alice!alb @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: Discovery Back in VAB The Discovery was moved back to the VAB today, the first time a space shuttle has been removed from the launch pad after being rolled out there, so that workers could separate the ship from its external tank and SRB's. After the separation, the shuttle will be moved to the OFP, where modifications will be made to the cargo bay to enable the ship to take two extra comminucations satellites up in August. The new launch date is, again, 24 August. ------------------------------ Date: Mon 16 Jul 84 08:59:24-EDT From: Anthony J. Courtemanche Subject: # of satellites in earth orbit To: space@MIT-MC Can anyone tell me a rough estimate of how many working and nonworking artificial satellites (not counting pieces of explosive bolts and other random things) are in Earth orbit? I had heard from a friend of mine that it was between 70 and 100 and I am curious to find out if this is accurate. Thanks in advance, Anthony ------------------------------ Date: 13 Jul 84 11:15:15-PDT (Fri) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: hplabs!ames!al @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: Re: Chicago Tribune Article No, the computer will not go into the scrap heap (yet, anyway). Much more >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> important (at least in the NASA way of doing things) is to discover exactly WHY the computer failed. It will most probably be sent back to the manufacturer to be tested to death in order to find out whether the fault was a fluke (and why) or whether it is a design error.... This is one of the major reasons why the exploration of space has been so expensive. In a commercial operation, that computer would be tested, and if it failed, it would be scrapped and replaced. Another $1.2 million burned. NASA will more than likely expend far more than the $1.2 million tracing the error. The largest part of that cost per computer, in the first place, is the paperwork that the manufacturer has to generate on each piece of hardware in order that a fault can be traced to the exact step where it was introduced. Yes, this probably kept a few astronauts from being killed in space; but it has made space exploration a very expensive proposition, indulged in only by governments. -- Lyle McElhaney >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> As a recent spate of in flight failures has shown, extreme caution is needed in space to make things work. The margins for error are tiny and the consequences of mistakes in the hundred million dollar range or more. Insurance money for spacecraft is drying up and getting very expensive due to failures by PAM-D, Ariane and other upper stages. NASA is extremely careful because that is what it takes to make spacecraft work. Even the vast documentation requirements failed to note a critical pin on Solar-Max that almost caused the mission to fail. The paper work could be replaced by computer work at lower cost and greater reliability, but leaving out the tests and documentation is asking for megabucks down the tubes. ------------------------------ Date: 11 Jul 84 17:22:00-PDT (Wed) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: pur-ee!uiucdcs!trsvax!gm @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: 5 years ago today... - (nf) July 11, 1979 -- Skylab fell to Earth. ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 18-Jul-84 0405 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #251 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 251 Today's Topics: Sand/pebbles in GEO comet Austin Re: SPACE Digest V4 #250 Re: Sea Launched Missles Re: Re: Fire after Discovery Shutdown? - (nf) Missions Combined -- Launch Date Set Re:^2 Fire after Discovery Shutdown? - (nf) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 17 Jul 84 14:11:36 EDT From: MG9G@CMCCTF To: space%mit-mc@CMU-CS-A Attention: Space Bboard Subject: Sand/pebbles in GEO The benefit comes from the fact that all strategic sattelites occupying GEO would be destroyed. Obviously this would hurt both countries -- but about 80%, I believe the article said, of US strategic (read military) sattelites are in GEO, while nearly 80% of Russian military/strategic sattelites are NOT in GEO. Thus, the US would be hurt much more than the USSR. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 17 Jul 84 17:31:10 EDT From: Dick Koolish Subject: comet Austin To: space@mit-mc.arpa NEW COMET AUSTIN, 1984i Orbital elements have now been calculated by Brian G. Marsden of the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory. As announced on IAU Circular 3958, they show Comet Austin is in a retrograde orbit and will reach perhelion in mid-August inside the orbit of Mercury. Marsden's 1950.0 elements are as follows: T 1984 Aug 12.13 q 0.2912 Arg. peri. 352.83 Asc. node 170.57 i 164.11 Comet Austin is currently visible only from the Southern Hemisphere. By late August, it will emerge from the Sun's glare and become accessible to northern observers with binoculars or small telescopes. It will then be low in the eastern predawn sky, near the Sickle of Leo, and shining with a visual magnitude of perhaps 7 or 8. As the comet moves slowly northeastward it will climb higher, fading to magnitude 10 or 11 by the end of September when it lies near Castor and Pollux. COMET AUSTIN (1950 Coordinates) 1984 R.A. Dec Mag Op Lat Tail PA JUL 19.0 9 17.2 -12 10 +6.8 59 S 148 JUL 24.0 9 50.7 -4 30 +6.8 46 S 136 JUL 29.0 10 05.9 +0 29 +6.5 40 S 130 AUG 3.0 10 10.8 +4 30 +6.0 36 S 126 AUG 8.0 10 07.0 +8 28 +5.3 ---- 121 AUG 13.0 9 55.2 +12 42 +5.2 ---- 110 AUG 18.0 9 39.6 +16 41 +6.0 ---- 328 AUG 23.0 9 25.0 +20 00 +7.1 ---- 308 AUG 28.0 9 12.3 +22 48 +8.1 32 N 304 SEP 2.0 9 00.7 +25.19 +8.8 33 N 301 SEP 7.0 8 49.5 +27 45 +9.4 34 N 298 SEP 12.0 8 37.7 +30 12 +9.9 35 N 296 SEP 17.0 8 24.5 +32 47 +10.2 36 N 294 SEP 22.0 8 08.9 +35 33 +10.5 38 N 291 SEP 27.0 7 49.6 +38 33 +10.8 40 N 287 OCT 2.0 7 24.8 +41 44 +11.0 42 N 282 OCT 7.0 6 52.4 +44 54 +11.1 44 N 274 ------------------------------ Date: 17 Jul 1984 19:16-EST From: Hank.Walker@CMU-CS-UNH.ARPA Subject: Re: SPACE Digest V4 #250 To: AC@mit-oz,space@mit-mc Message-Id: <458954201/dmw@CMU-CS-UNH> The number of satellites in orbit is far higher than 70 or 100, more like 1163. According to the September 1983 issue of Spectrum, the breakdown for 1066 of them is as follows: TYPE Com. Nav. Mil. Met. Res. Sci. Ama. UFO ORBIT Geo 85 0 14 11 0 9 0 2? High 114 92 282 51 13 115 13 144? Low 3 2 40 19 16 32 0 9? Geo = Geosynchronous orbit (37,165 km) High = High Orbit (833 to 37,000 km) Low = Low Orbit (Less than 833 km) Com = Communications Nav = Navigation Mil = Military Met = Meteorologic Res = Earth and Sea Resources Sci = Scientific Ama = Amateur radio UFO = Unidentified ------------------------------ Date: 29 Jun 84 10:36:17-PDT (Fri) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: ihnp4!gargoyle!toby @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: Re: Sea Launched Missles This has already gotten too far away from net.SPACE. I think it is an interesting discussion, but it doesn`t really belong here. How about bopping this over to net.misc or net.politics (since us USENET types cannot post to fa.arms-d)? To add fule to the fire: the suggestions (ASAT`s, SLM`s, baby-subs, etc.) are all ways to preserve MAD (Mutual Assured Destruction), if indeed it still exists. If you go in for MAD (a.k.a Balance of Terror), what`s wrong with germs? Germ war is no more an abomination than nuclear war, and stockpiling and protecting (i.e assuring their release) would be *much* cheaper than building ICBM`s and their ilk. And if done right the killer germs would only affect homo.sap, giving them post-Armageddon cockroaches some competition. Toby Harness Ogburn/Stouffer Center, University of Chicago ...ihnp4!gargoyle!toby ------------------------------ Date: 13 Jul 84 14:48:19-PDT (Fri) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: decvax!cca!ima!haddock!stevel @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: Re: Re: Fire after Discovery Shutdown? - (nf) > The sound suppression system, for those joining us late, is required > because the launch pad is a giant slab of concrete. Apparently the > old Saturn Vs had a relatively quiet ignition; when the SRBs of the > Shuttle ignite, a *very* strong shock wave leaves the engines, hits > the pad, and bounces straight back into the ET and orbiter. I belive the Saturn V had a water spray system like the shuttles. I don't know if it was kept when the pad was rebuilt. Maybe it wasn't enough for the SRB's. Does anybody out there know? ------------------------------ Date: 12 Jul 84 17:37:56-PDT (Thu) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: ihnp4!houxm!mhuxl!ulysses!allegra!alice!alb @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: Missions Combined -- Launch Date Set NASA today announced that it will combine the aborted mission and its successor into one flight of the Discovery. That flight is now scheduled to launch on 24 August. On Saturday, the shuttle is to be rolled back to the hangar so that two satellites from the second mission can be loaded aboard. The Star-48 nozzle failure earlier this week was attributed to test conditions and was ''probably not due to the nozzle itself,'' said a McDonnel- Douglas statement. Thus, the two satellites will fly; if it is found that the nozzle was indeed at fault, they can always be removed. One Leasat satellite from mission 1, in addition to the space solar panel and pharmaceutical experiments, will be retained; a second Leasat satellite will be moved to the 1 October launch of the Challenger (beginning with the 1 October launch, shuttle are scheduled to fly at least once a month.) The crew for the combined mission will be the crew from mission 1, commanded by Henry Hartsfield; the crew from mission 2 will be reassigned as soon as possible. ------------------------------ Date: 14 Jul 84 6:57:22-PDT (Sat) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: hplabs!sdcrdcf!sdcsvax!akgua!mcnc!duke!ucf-cs!giles @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: Re:^2 Fire after Discovery Shutdown? - (nf) >> The sound suppression system, for those joining us late, is required >> because the launch pad is a giant slab of concrete. Apparently the >> old Saturn Vs had a relatively quiet ignition; when the SRBs of the >> Shuttle ignite, a *very* strong shock wave leaves the engines, hits >> the pad, and bounces straight back into the ET and orbiter. > I belive the Saturn V had a water spray system like the shuttles. > I don't know if it was kept when the pad was rebuilt. Maybe it > wasn't enough for the SRB's. Does anybody out there know? If I recall correctly, the water spray system for the Saturn Vs were for thermal protection of the pad. (Not so much to prevent outright melting as to avoid thermal shock & resulting fatigue). In contrast, the Shuttle water supply is used to absorb the sound of the engines igniting and the first few second of thrust. I'll ask my source for the other information I posted if the thermal protection system for the Apollo program was retained for the shuttle, but he has moved to Colorado and I frequently forget to mention things when I call. (Yup -- 23 & senile!). Bruce Giles {decvax, duke}!ucf-cs!giles university of central florida giles.ucf-cs@Rand-Relay orlando, florida 32816 ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 19-Jul-84 0407 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #252 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 252 Today's Topics: Amateur Astronomy Convention Geostar seems alive lighting in space software modeling for space station Friday Re: Apollo Film Question Geostar one step closer Re: Chicago Tribune Article (long flame) Re: Chicago Tribune Article (long flame) Re: USENET satellite ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 18 Jul 84 11:08:33 PDT From: "Kyle D. Henriksen" To: space@mit-mc, sky-fans@mit-xx Subject: Amateur Astronomy Convention Can anyone out there when and where the Riverside California amateur astronomy convention is? Have I already missed it? How much is admission? Thanks for any information provided. Kyle Henriksen address: kyle@UCLA-LOCUS.ARPA ------------------------------ Date: 18 Jul 1984 20:38:40-EDT From: Hank.Walker at CMU-CS-UNH Subject: Geostar seems alive >From ELECTRONICS 7/12/84: Supercomputers and satellite-based radio positioning systems should form the backbone of the nation's next generation of air-traffic-control systems. But unless the Federal Aviation Administration rethinks its 10-year-old modernization strategy, billions of dollars will be spent on technology that will be obsolete and in need of replacement by the mid-1990s, warns the General Accounting Office. "It's just another example of a Federal agency failing to keep up with the latest technological developments," notes Douglas Cannon, a senior systems analyst who helped prepare the GAO's critique. For example, the FAA wants to equip its 20 air-traffic-control centers with new scanning-beam radar systems at a time when users throughout the world are saying that satellites may offer significantly better coverage, accuracy, and capacity at a lower total cost. "It just doesn't make sense to take an interim step when a leap is within our means," concludes Cannon. The message hasn't been lost on Capitol Hill. First of all, the House, in its 1985 appropriations bill for the Department of Transportation, says that the FAA must submit a full report answering the GAO's concerns 45 days before any purchase of new hardware. Second, the FAA must prove that the proposed equipment will be able to satisfy its future software needs. Finally, the lawmakers have cut $20 million from the agency's budget for ground-based radars and put a freeze on spending until the FAA produces a study on the feasibility of a space-based air-traffic-control ssytem. ------------------------------ Date: 17 Jul 84 22:33:49-PDT (Tue) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: hplabs!ames!al @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: lighting in space We need to do real time displays of out the window and video views from a simulated space station. One of the issues is how to do the lighting effects (very dark shadows, little scattering, sharp shadow/light lines). Any ideas? It has to be fast enough to keep up with the real world! ------------------------------ Date: 17 Jul 84 22:28:51-PDT (Tue) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: hplabs!ames!al @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: software modeling for space station We're designing a space station simulator to study human factors. One of the things the crew must interact with is the data system, including the software. Any good ideas on modeling data systems in general and software in particular without writing the whole thing? Simply implementing even just the on board software is prohibitive, much less ground software the crew will likely have access to. ------------------------------ Date: 16 Jul 84 15:34:14-PDT (Mon) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: ihnp4!houxm!mhuxl!ulysses!burl!clyde!watmath!utzoo!henry @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: Friday This Friday at 1617 EDT, everyone should spend a moment remembering that this is the 15th anniversary of one of the most significant events in human history. If you don't know what happened at 1617 EDT 20 July 1969, you shouldn't be reading this newsgroup. -- Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology {allegra,ihnp4,linus,decvax}!utzoo!henry ------------------------------ Date: 16 Jul 84 15:30:51-PDT (Mon) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: ihnp4!houxm!mhuxl!ulysses!burl!clyde!watmath!utzoo!henry @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: Re: Apollo Film Question The early Saturns (or maybe even all of them -- I'm not sure) carried camera pods in various places. The pods were built to stand reentry and had flotation gear and beacons for recovery. One more way of collecting data for analysis in case something went wrong. -- Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology {allegra,ihnp4,linus,decvax}!utzoo!henry ------------------------------ Date: 16 Jul 84 19:23:28-PDT (Mon) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: ihnp4!houxm!mhuxl!ulysses!burl!clyde!watmath!utzoo!henry @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: Geostar one step closer >From Electronics, 12 July 1984: ...Following a year of intense lobbying by the Geostar Corp., Princeton, NJ, the FCC has decided to allocate frequencies to an operational satellite system for radio-location services. The firm is the first, and, up to now, the only company with both a design and an application pending for approval by the FCC... Hooray! [For those of you who don't know what this is about, Geostar is Gerard O'Neill's latest bright idea: a location and communication system that uses a few satellites and a big ground-based computer to provide very accurate position information and (perhaps) communications service to simple and cheap mobile terminals. Quite apart from the intrinsic merits of the scheme (it's a much better navigation system than, say, the US military Navstar system) and its potential applications to things like air traffic control, a substantial fraction of the profits from Geostar go to the Space Studies Institute. SSI was the first, and is still the most forward-looking, source of private funds for research on space development.] -- Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology {allegra,ihnp4,linus,decvax}!utzoo!henry ------------------------------ Date: 16 Jul 84 18:59:54-PDT (Mon) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: ihnp4!houxm!mhuxl!ulysses!burl!clyde!watmath!utzoo!henry @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: Re: Chicago Tribune Article (long flame) > As a recent spate of in flight failures > has shown, extreme caution is needed in space to make things work. The > margins for error are tiny and the consequences of mistakes in the hundred > million dollar range or more. Insurance money for spacecraft is drying up > and getting very expensive due to failures by PAM-D, Ariane and other upper > stages. NASA is extremely careful because that is what it takes to make > spacecraft work. Even the vast documentation requirements failed to note > a critical pin on Solar-Max that almost caused the mission to fail. The > paper work could be replaced by computer work at lower cost and greater > reliability, but leaving out the tests and documentation is asking for > megabucks down the tubes. As several projects have demonstrated, vast documentation systems are *not* necessary for the (rare) projects that are run *right*. A good example of this is the SR-71 Blackbird. It's still the world's fastest aircraft (if you don't count the Shuttle's brief reentry), and 25 years ago it was a formidable challenge. New ground had to be broken in a dozen areas, including metallurgy. [I mention this because tracking every last piece of metal is one of the reasons frequently advanced for needing bales of paper for everything.] Nevertheless, it got by with several orders of magnitude less documentation than "ordinary" aircraft projects needed, even then. "Do not confuse effort with work." The basic problem with the space business right now is not the lack of still-more-detailed documentation. It is the "everything is required to work right the first time" attitude. Now, don't get me wrong. There is nothing wrong with "we will do our best to make sure it works the first time"; it's definitely the only way to go. The problem is when you start insisting that failures are not just undesirable, but unacceptable. This means that it is impossible to do meaningful experiments, because they might fail. *OF COURSE* it is expensive to build, say, a Space Shuttle, when the roof falls in if the tiniest thing goes wrong. How many aircraft are required to be perfect after only a handful of test flights? Yet the Shuttle program not only organized things this way, it based the whole viability of the program on the notion that the Shuttle would be fully operational almost instantly. This is madness, and awesomely expensive madness too. Even in military aircraft programs, not noted for being well-managed, it's common for the first dozen aircraft to be allocated solely to test work, with no expectation that they will ever be useful otherwise. Where are the test shuttles? Please don't tell me that the orbiters are too expensive to be used this way; this is known as "painting yourself into a corner", and does not connote good design to me. In retrospect, it is clear that the Shuttle was too ambitious a project trying to meet too many needs simultaneously. The US would be much better off with a large fleet of much smaller reusable spacecraft, plus big expendable boosters for heavy-lift work. Oh, true, the heavy-lift jobs ought to be done with reusables, too -- EVENTUALLY. But one must learn to crawl before one can walk, and NASA is now paying the price for trying to take shortcuts. "Of course it'll work." Sure. Of course "extreme caution is needed... to make things work", of course "margins for error are tiny", of course the consequences of mistakes are severe -- because the whole system is organized on the assumption that mistakes will never happen! The margins for error should never have been allowed to get that small, because Murphy's Law really does apply here, as everywhere else. "Even the vast documentation ... failed to note a critical pin on Solar-Max that almost caused the mission to fail...", and as we all know, it's a good thing for the Shuttle's credibility that the Solar Max repair worked. This sort of cliffhanger should not be allowed to happen. It's a travesty to design a spacecraft to be repaired in-orbit by the shuttle and then forget to include an emergency de-spin system, which would permit the thing to be despun for repair in the presence of attitude-control failure. It's ridiculous to set up a repair mission which cannot adapt to the smallest problem. My understanding was that the docking failure was because of a spike of fiberglass sticking up; why didn't the astronaut have clippers on hand for coping with such things? (Yes, I know, because the spacesuits are too clumsy for such fine work in tricky conditions... please don't set me off about the wretched misdesign of current spacesuits...) It's a credit to the cleverness of the astronauts and the people on the ground that they managed successful completion of such a zero-defects mission after the inevitable defects showed up. I hope the rescue mission for the PAMmed satellites is indeed mounted. It would be another small step towards a system that is somewhat tolerant of unexpected difficulties. Unless, of course, the mission is a failure because NASA, once again, assumes that the plan is perfect and nothing will go wrong... I realize that I am, to some degree, slandering NASA unfairly. They do put a lot of attention into contingency plans and such. But this is all to meet *expected* troubles; building in enough flexibility to meet the *unexpected* problems is a subtly different thing. Sometimes NASA pulls this off, sometimes not. It was fortunate for the Apollo 13 crew that some smart people insisted on making the LM computer identical to the CM one, rather than specializing it for the lunar landing only. It was a potentially-disastrous inconvenience to them that nobody thought to apply the same philosophy to the lithium-hydroxide air-purifier cartridges; fortunately they managed to improvise around that one. This same phenomenon has been noted in other contexts, notably military aircraft projects: lots of attention to known problem areas, but a firm subconscious assumption that everything else will work, because it's required to. The only real solution to this is a firm emphasis on getting real working hardware -- not computerized guesswork and theoretical pontifications -- going *early*, so that the inevitable mistakes can be found and fixed. Testing must be thorough, and must be done on whole systems, not just components! The tests, and preferably the operational service thereafter, must not be structured on the assumption that there will be no failures: failure-tolerance must be built into the plans, not just the hardware. Note that this implies designing the whole system so that a single failure is neither disastrous nor astronomically expensive. (I don't even want to *think* about the results of a Shuttle crashing.) Everyone, especially Congress and the media, should be clearly told that trouble is expected and is not cause for panic. ["You say your program still needs debugging, because you didn't write it correctly the very first time? Unacceptable. You're fired."] I know, it's easier said than done. Especially for a US government bureaucracy. Best argument I've heard yet for private industry in space... -- Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology {allegra,ihnp4,linus,decvax}!utzoo!henry ------------------------------ id AA15434; Thu, 19 Jul 84 01:02:23 pdt id AA11697; Thu, 19 Jul 84 01:03:45 pdt Date: Thu, 19 Jul 84 01:03:45 pdt From: Rick McGeer (on an h19-u) Message-Id: <8407190803.AA11697@ucbkim.ARPA> To: allegra!watmath!utzoo!henry@Berkeley, space@mit-Mc.ARPA Subject: Re: Chicago Tribune Article (long flame) Cc: Damn right you're being unfair. Remember the flap in the late fifties and early sixties when NASA did have a series of tests and did have busted launches? There was a howl from the public and the Congress that could be heard from Moscow. Given that, and the Mondale/Proxmire bills in the seventies to kill NASA, it's not surprising that NASA feels that it can't test and can't have any failures -- the lawyers in Congress, who don't understand engineering design and don't want to, would cut funds in a minute if, say, an orbiter blew up on the pad. Also, isn't it always the case that prototypes are more expensive than the production version? Rick. ------------------------------ Date: 17 Jul 84 12:45:44-PDT (Tue) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: ihnp4!houxm!mhuxl!ulysses!allegra!mouton!karn @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: Re: USENET satellite The project which you suggest is in fact being done by AMSAT: it's called PACSAT. Actually, there are now three distinct projects for packet radio hardware (i.e., hardware containing HDLC decoding/encoding, memory, etc, as opposed to straight "bent pipe" transponders). PACSAT is one involving a dedicated payload to be deployed from the Shuttle on a Vandenburg launch. The working figures are 9600 bps PSK up and down, with 4 megabytes of CMOS bulk RAM. The Japanese are also working on JAS-1, which will contain a smaller pacsat-like unit, although the memory capacity and transmission speeds will be smaller. The orbit planned for JAS-1 is approx 1500 km, high inclination but not sun-synchronous. JAS-1 will also carry a more conventional real-time transponder similar to that of Oscar-8 (which also carried a transponder of Japanese construction.) There is now a new project underway to include some form of packet radio store-and-forward unit as part of Phase 3-C, to be launched on an Ariane in a few years. A new group of amateur packet enthusiasts in the Munich area (which I just visited) is starting this work. All in all, there is a lot of interest in this type of work. However, for USENET there are some fatal problems. First, amateur radio cannot be used for business purposes. Since this is how we justify USENET to our employers (regardless of what the traffic actually looks like) it would be somewhat hypocritical to use amateur radio. Second, many countries do not have rules quite as liberal as the USA and "third party" traffic (communications involving a non-amateur party) are not permitted. Third, some administrations do not as yet recognize digital transmissions in their amateur rules. Phil Karn, KA9Q Asst VP Engineering, AMSAT ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 253 Today's Topics: Two things (new) Water System on the pad Radiation from Sov. blast?? Pittsburgh Spaceday 84 Re: Amateur Astronomy Convention Discovery Discovery Remodeling Commenced Re: Water System on the pad Re: Friday ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 18 Jul 84 10:21:50-PDT (Wed) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: hplabs!hao!ames!eugene @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: Two things (new) For Henry Spencer, You hit the nail on the head with one of those problems: because of 'budgetary constraints' NASA has gone to 'success the first time.' NASA is certainly guilty of this, but that is partially the nature of men like Hans Mark and Werner von Braun. I have met Mark, and he is a man who "shoots crap" in his words. As another point, remember, I mentioned that a lot of space technology unlike electronics for example, does not scale: e.g., there are limits to 'how thin you can make metal walls' and 'how much fuel a missile needs to carry.' In some cases, the problems are geometric: consider, you have a payload and fuel, but you have to use more fuel to carry the weight of the fuel and so on. A local firm tried a test of their rocket the other day (not a launch, but testing engines not big enough for orbital flight): for the test it was successful, but only the developers (as opposed to spectators and press) took it with a grain of salt. Good luck to all private developers! To correct a minor point, the Shuttle did have a number of prototypes before, launch. The steps to the first Shuttle were not as fine as the Soviet space plane and Soviet Shuttle, but they were still prototypes. A lots of testing was done in Hypersonic wind tunnels and using computer simulation (lots of this work was done here at Ames, I recently learned). Second, since Al Globius posted a note on our space station work: Dr. Barney Oliver (formerly of HP, and now retired and working at Ames), head of the Ames Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) program, is potentially looking for volunteers. SETI is not a heavily funded program, but they could use the labor to help build a very wide band spectrum analyzer for analysis of possible signals. They need EEs as well as software types. Interested Bay Area individuals can send mailer to me. --eugene miya NASA Ames Res. Ctr. {hplabs,hao,menlo70,dual}!ames!aurora!eugene emiya@ames-vmsb [note uucp name changes] ------------------------------ Date: 16 Jul 84 6:35:07-PDT (Mon) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: hplabs!hpda!fortune!amd!decwrl!dec-rhea!dec-dvinci!fisher @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: Water System on the pad My recollection of things about water cooling/shock-wave-suppression is as follows: 1) The Saturn 5 without question had water cooling at its base. I remember seeing it start up a few seconds before ignition. 2) Even on mission 1, the shuttle had SOME water. I believe that ugly water tank you can see in almost any picture of the pad supplies water too this system. Note that that tank was there for the first launch. I don't know if the original intent of this water was cooling the pad or shock sup- pression or both. 3) After the first launch, as others have said, the shock-wave-from-the-SRBs problem was discovered (or at least quantified), and it was determined that more suppression was needed. At this point, the "water balloons" mentioned in other notes were added. I don't know if the original flowing water was modified to help the shock-wave problem or not. Interesting question: did the Saturn 1B have any cooling water? I suspect not since it sat way up on that "milk-stool" launch platform. Burns Fisher UUCP: ... {decvax|allegra|ucbvax}!decwrl!rhea!dvinci!fisher ARPA: decwrl!rhea!dvinci!fisher@{Berkeley | SU-Shasta} ------------------------------ Date: 17 Jul 84 13:52:40-PDT (Tue) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: pur-ee!CS-Mordred!Pucc-H.Physics.els @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: Radiation from Sov. blast?? Does anyone out there in netland monitor rain water for radioactivity?? (Or perhaps know of someone who does this, like some high school or college classes occasionally do.) If so, and if any nukes cooked off in the blast, perhaps the count in the rainwater rose a few weeks after the blast. I'm sure there are many people who are curious about this, so I'm hoping for some sort of response. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ "Someday, all this will be | yours!!" | A message from the mental maze that | calls itself: "What??? The curtains????" | | ERIC STROBEL --------------------------------| UUCP: {decvax,ucbvax,harpo,allegra,inuxc,seismo,teklabs}!pur-ee!Physics:els INTERNET: els @ pur-phy.UUCP ------------------------------ Date: 19 Jul 1984 12:01:48-EDT From: Dale.Amon at CMU-RI-FAS Subject: Pittsburgh Spaceday 84 SPACEDAY 84 Saturday, July 21, 1984 (Starts at 11:30am) Buhl Science Center Allegheny Square, Pittsburgh, PA 15212 412-321-4302 Sponsored by: Pittsburgh L5 Society Buhl Science Center Speakers: Philip Smith University of Pittsburgh English Dept. Al Janis University of Pittsburgh Physics Dept. John Stein Allegheny Observatory Bruce Hapke University of Pittsburgh Geology and Planetary Sciences Exhibitors: Amateur Astronomers Association of Pittsburgh American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics Astrotech International, Inc Computer Friend Digital Equipment Corporation High Frontier International Technology Institute Pittsburgh Area Computer Club Pittsburgh High Technology Council Pittsburgh L5 The Robotics Institute of Carnegie Mellon University Rockwell International Tripoli Science Association United States Air Force Skyshow: To Worlds Unknown Movie: 2001 (showing at 5:45pm) Other: Lunar Sample Workshops Solar Observatory (weather permitting) Refreshments We have a fine day planned out, so bring your family and friends and make a day of it! ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 19 Jul 1984 12:24 EDT Message-ID: From: OAF%MIT-OZ@MIT-MC.ARPA Cc: space@MIT-MC.ARPA Replying to Henry Spencer, I suspect that PART of the documentation hangup is due to political influences. There are now, always have been and always will be people in congress (if not the presidency) willing to sacrifice the space effort (and everything else) to advance their political careers. These ambitions are orthogonal to common sense, honesty or other traditional values. As a result, people working in the space program tend to make sure there's a scapegoat for everything that goes wrong. That requires KGBish documentation. End of exposition. (I don't think that's the whole reason; just agreeing that there's too much bureaucracy amd looking for shreds of explanation.) Oded ------------------------------ Date: 19 Jul 84 11:33:25 PDT (Thursday) From: Lynn.es@XEROX.ARPA Subject: Re: Amateur Astronomy Convention To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC.ARPA cc: Lynn.es@XEROX.ARPA, kyle@UCLA-LOCUS.ARPA The Riverside Telescope Makers Conference is always held on Memorial Day weekend (friday noon to monday noon) at Camp Oakes just east of Big Bear City. It consists of seminars and talks on telescope making/astrophotography/observing etc., star gazing, a telescope and parts flea market, and a chance to meet lots of the names you see in the astronomy magazines. It was great, so start planning to go next year. Prices vary from $5 for one daytime admission to $43 for 3 nights, including lodging and 8 meals. Proceedings were $10 additional. I will be glad to expound further if anyone has questions. If anyone messages me next April or so, I will undoubtedly have next year's info sheet by then. /Don Lynn ------------------------------ Date: Thursday, 19 July 1984 20:56:34 EDT From: Hans.Moravec@cmu-ri-rover.arpa To: space@mit-mc.arpa Subject: Discovery Message-ID: <1984.7.20.0.55.47.Hans.Moravec@cmu-ri-rover.arpa> a058 0527 18 Jul 84 PM-National Briefs,620 CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) - NASA technicials have begun remodeling the shuttle Discovery's cargo hold to carry two additional satellites as part of plans to combine its delayed maiden voyage with a scheduled August mission. Work began Tuesday, said National Aeronautics and Space Administration spokesman Dick Young. The earliest launch date would be Aug. 24, he said. NASA plans monthly shuttle launches starting in October. Discovery will retain the IMAX camera and a drug-making machine from the delayed June mission. It will also carry Leasat II, the satellite Business Systems and the Telstar satellite. --- ------------------------------ Date: 18 Jul 84 5:12:37-PDT (Wed) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: ihnp4!houxm!mhuxl!ulysses!allegra!alice!alb @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: Discovery Remodeling Commenced Technicians yesterday began remodeling the cargo bay of the Discovery to enable it to hold two extra satellites on the upcoming mission. The process should take the rest of the month, with rollback to the VAB scheduled for 3 August and launch for 24 August. ------------------------------ Date: 18 Jul 84 8:54:05-PDT (Wed) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: ihnp4!tellab1!tellab2!thoth @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: Re: Water System on the pad The first flights of the Saturn IB were launched from Launch Complex 34 and LC37. These definately had water systems to protect the pad after launch, but I don't know about the launches from LC39. It seems that there must have been something to protect the launcher, though. marcus ..!ihnp4!tellab1!tellab2!thoth ------------------------------ Date: 18 Jul 84 14:52:29-PDT (Wed) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: hplabs!hao!cires!nbires!opus!atkins @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: Re: Friday What if you are only 16 years old?? ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 21-Jul-84 0404 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #254 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 254 Today's Topics: Two things (new) Re: Sand/pebbles in GEO Re: NASA reliability flame Geostar failure modes Re: Geostar failure modes ---------------------------------------------------------------------- To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 253 Today's Topics: Two things (new) Water System on the pad Radiation from Sov. blast?? Pittsburgh Spaceday 84 Re: Amateur Astronomy Convention Discovery Discovery Remodeling Commenced Re: Water System on the pad Re: Friday ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 18 Jul 84 10:21:50-PDT (Wed) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: hplabs!hao!ames!eugene @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: Two things (new) For Henry Spencer, You hit the nail on the head with one of those problems: because of 'budgetary constraints' NASA has gone to 'success the first time.' NASA is certainly guilty of this, but that is partially the nature of men like Hans Mark and Werner von Braun. I have met Mark, and he is a man who "shoots crap" in his words. As another point, remember, I mentioned that a lot of space technology unlike electronics for example, does not scale: e.g., there are limits to 'how thin you can make metal walls' and 'how much fuel a missile needs to carry.' In some cases, the problems are geometric: consider, you have a payload and fuel, but you have to use more fuel to carry the weight of the fuel and so on. A local firm tried a test of their rocket the other day (not a launch, but testing engines not big enough for orbital flight): for the test it was successful, but only the developers (as opposed to spectators and press) took it with a grain of salt. Good luck to all private developers! To correct a minor point, the Shuttle did have a number of prototypes before, launch. The steps to the first Shuttle were not as fine as the Soviet space plane and Soviet Shuttle, but they were still prototypes. A lots of testing was done in Hypersonic wind tunnels and using computer simulation (lots of this work was done here at Ames, I recently learned). Second, since Al Globius posted a note on our space station work: Dr. Barney Oliver (formerly of HP, and now retired and working at Ames), head of the Ames Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) program, is potentially looking for volunteers. SETI is not a heavily funded program, but they could use the labor to help build a very wide band spectrum analyzer for analysis of possible signals. They need EEs as well as software types. Interested Bay Area individuals can send mailer to me. --eugene miya NASA Ames Res. Ctr. {hplabs,hao,menlo70,dual}!ames!aurora!eugene emiya@ames-vmsb [note uucp name changes] ------------------------------ Date: 16 Jul 84 6:35:07-PDT (Mon) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: hplabs!hpda!fortune!amd!decwrl!dec-rhea!dec-dvinci!fisher @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: Water System on the pad My recollection of things about water cooling/shock-wave-suppression is as follows: 1) The Saturn 5 without question had water cooling at its base. I remember seeing it start up a few seconds before ignition. 2) Even on mission 1, the shuttle had SOME water. I believe that ugly water tank you can see in almost any picture of the pad supplies water too this system. Note that that tank was there for the first launch. I don't know if the original intent of this water was cooling the pad or shock sup- pression or both. 3) After the first launch, as others have said, the shock-wave-from-the-SRBs problem was discovered (or at least quantified), and it was determined that more suppression was needed. At this point, the "water balloons" mentioned in other notes were added. I don't know if the original flowing water was modified to help the shock-wave problem or not. Interesting question: did the Saturn 1B have any cooling water? I suspect not since it sat way up on that "milk-stool" launch platform. Burns Fisher UUCP: ... {decvax|allegra|ucbvax}!decwrl!rhea!dvinci!fisher ARPA: decwrl!rhea!dvinci!fisher@{Berkeley | SU-Shasta} ------------------------------ Date: 17 Jul 84 13:52:40-PDT (Tue) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: pur-ee!CS-Mordred!Pucc-H.Physics.els @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: Radiation from Sov. blast?? Does anyone out there in netland monitor rain water for radioactivity?? (Or perhaps know of someone who does this, like some high school or college classes occasionally do.) If so, and if any nukes cooked off in the blast, perhaps the count in the rainwater rose a few weeks after the blast. I'm sure there are many people who are curious about this, so I'm hoping for some sort of response. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ "Someday, all this will be | yours!!" | A message from the mental maze that | calls itself: "What??? The curtains????" | | ERIC STROBEL --------------------------------| UUCP: {decvax,ucbvax,harpo,allegra,inuxc,seismo,teklabs}!pur-ee!Physics:els INTERNET: els @ pur-phy.UUCP ------------------------------ Date: 19 Jul 1984 12:01:48-EDT From: Dale.Amon at CMU-RI-FAS Subject: Pittsburgh Spaceday 84 SPACEDAY 84 Saturday, July 21, 1984 (Starts at 11:30am) Buhl Science Center Allegheny Square, Pittsburgh, PA 15212 412-321-4302 Sponsored by: Pittsburgh L5 Society Buhl Science Center Speakers: Philip Smith University of Pittsburgh English Dept. Al Janis University of Pittsburgh Physics Dept. John Stein Allegheny Observatory Bruce Hapke University of Pittsburgh Geology and Planetary Sciences Exhibitors: Amateur Astronomers Association of Pittsburgh American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics Astrotech International, Inc Computer Friend Digital Equipment Corporation High Frontier International Technology Institute Pittsburgh Area Computer Club Pittsburgh High Technology Council Pittsburgh L5 The Robotics Institute of Carnegie Mellon University Rockwell International Tripoli Science Association United States Air Force Skyshow: To Worlds Unknown Movie: 2001 (showing at 5:45pm) Other: Lunar Sample Workshops Solar Observatory (weather permitting) Refreshments We have a fine day planned out, so bring your family and friends and make a day of it! ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 19 Jul 1984 12:24 EDT Message-ID: From: OAF%MIT-OZ@MIT-MC.ARPA Cc: space@MIT-MC.ARPA Replying to Henry Spencer, I suspect that PART of the documentation hangup is due to political influences. There are now, always have been and always will be people in congress (if not the presidency) willing to sacrifice the space effort (and everything else) to advance their political careers. These ambitions are orthogonal to common sense, honesty or other traditional values. As a result, people working in the space program tend to make sure there's a scapegoat for everything that goes wrong. That requires KGBish documentation. End of exposition. (I don't think that's the whole reason; just agreeing that there's too much bureaucracy amd looking for shreds of explanation.) Oded ------------------------------ Date: 19 Jul 84 11:33:25 PDT (Thursday) From: Lynn.es@XEROX.ARPA Subject: Re: Amateur Astronomy Convention To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC.ARPA cc: Lynn.es@XEROX.ARPA, kyle@UCLA-LOCUS.ARPA The Riverside Telescope Makers Conference is always held on Memorial Day weekend (friday noon to monday noon) at Camp Oakes just east of Big Bear City. It consists of seminars and talks on telescope making/astrophotography/observing etc., star gazing, a telescope and parts flea market, and a chance to meet lots of the names you see in the astronomy magazines. It was great, so start planning to go next year. Prices vary from $5 for one daytime admission to $43 for 3 nights, including lodging and 8 meals. Proceedings were $10 additional. I will be glad to expound further if anyone has questions. If anyone messages me next April or so, I will undoubtedly have next year's info sheet by then. /Don Lynn ------------------------------ Date: Thursday, 19 July 1984 20:56:34 EDT From: Hans.Moravec@cmu-ri-rover.arpa To: space@mit-mc.arpa Subject: Discovery Message-ID: <1984.7.20.0.55.47.Hans.Moravec@cmu-ri-rover.arpa> a058 0527 18 Jul 84 PM-National Briefs,620 CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) - NASA technicials have begun remodeling the shuttle Discovery's cargo hold to carry two additional satellites as part of plans to combine its delayed maiden voyage with a scheduled August mission. Work began Tuesday, said National Aeronautics and Space Administration spokesman Dick Young. The earliest launch date would be Aug. 24, he said. NASA plans monthly shuttle launches starting in October. Discovery will retain the IMAX camera and a drug-making machine from the delayed June mission. It will also carry Leasat II, the satellite Business Systems and the Telstar satellite. --- ------------------------------ Date: 18 Jul 84 5:12:37-PDT (Wed) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: ihnp4!houxm!mhuxl!ulysses!allegra!alice!alb @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: Discovery Remodeling Commenced Technicians yesterday began remodeling the cargo bay of the Discovery to enable it to hold two extra satellites on the upcoming mission. The process should take the rest of the month, with rollback to the VAB scheduled for 3 August and launch for 24 August. ------------------------------ Date: 18 Jul 84 8:54:05-PDT (Wed) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: ihnp4!tellab1!tellab2!thoth @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: Re: Water System on the pad The first flights of the Saturn IB were launched from Launch Complex 34 and LC37. These definately had water systems to protect the pad after launch, but I don't know about the launches from LC39. It seems that there must have been something to protect the launcher, though. marcus ..!ihnp4!tellab1!tellab2!thoth ------------------------------ Date: 18 Jul 84 14:52:29-PDT (Wed) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: hplabs!hao!cires!nbires!opus!atkins @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: Re: Friday What if you are only 16 years old?? ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* ------------------------------ Date: 19 Jul 84 13:16:12-PDT (Thu) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: hplabs!hao!ames!al @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: Re: Sand/pebbles in GEO >The benefit comes from the fact that all strategic sattelites occupying >GEO would be destroyed. Obviously this would hurt both countries -- but >about 80%, I believe the article said, of US strategic (read military) >sattelites are in GEO, while nearly 80% of Russian military/strategic >sattelites are NOT in GEO. Thus, the US would be hurt much more than >the USSR. I don't see any benefit here, I see levels of hurt. When someone's got thier hand over yours and you hit it with a hammer, you do not benefit simply because he has more broken bones than you do. Neither can write a poem. I challange the assumtion that the U.S. and U.S.S.R. are in a zero sum game where damage to one is benefit to the other. It has never been proved, and we are not at war - contrary to popular belief. In fact, we live on the same planet, breath the same air, drink the same water, and fear the same weapons. We are completely dependent on each other for our security. Our fates are inextricably bound. We'd better realize that. ------------------------------ Date: 19 Jul 84 13:04:55-PDT (Thu) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: hplabs!hao!ames!al @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: Re: NASA reliability flame This is in response to Henry Spencer's flame. I don't include the flame since it was rather long. I trust the paraphrases are accurate. Henry Spencer asked: 'where are the shuttle test articles?' Answer: the Enterprise. The Enterprise was the first orbiter built. It was never planned to go to space. It was strictly a test article. Henry doesn't appear to know much about how NASA actually works, although he has lots of opinions. NASA, contrary to Mr. Spencer's contention, does not assume that everything will work properly. Failures happen regularly at both the subsystem (bad) and system (mission failure) level. This is taken into account and planned for. Henry claims the astronauts should have had clippers to cut the pin off of Solar Max. For several reasons this would not have worked. 1. Cutting the pin might have loosened the insulation it held down leading to an over heated (failed) satellite. 2. A brief look at the the set up the astronaut was in makes it clear that there is no way he could have reached the pin. 3. Nobody knew that a pin was the problem for some time after the attempt. Henry seems to think there are no backup de-spin mechanism for Solar-Max. This is untrue. There are two systems that can de-spin the satellite. One failed and was replaced by the shuttle crew. The other was, in the end, used to de-spin the satellite. This operation was, however, full of risk and was not attempted until all other approaches had failed. People have a lot of fun thinking that NASA is a pack of overly cautious turkeys. These people, as far as I can tell, have never put anything in space and frequently don't know much about real space operations. Before you critisize the pros, I strongly suggest that you know A LOT about what you're talking about. At the least, read Aviation Week regularly. That's not to say that things can't be improved. I am saying that those who make the improvements will know where-of they speak, usually via direct hands-on experiance. Finnaly, aircraft are not spacecraft. If a aircraft has a problem you land it and look at it at your leasure on the ground with all the facilities of a major industrial power at hand. This is not the case for an orbiting spacecraft. Not only is access difficult in orbit, pre-launch testing is difficult since the operational environment is radically different from that found in ground facilities. ------------------------------ Date: 20 July 1984 08:39-EDT From: Robert Elton Maas Subject: Geostar failure modes To: SPACE @ MIT-MC If the ground computer sysem crashes, does the whole navigation system fail at one moment, leaving thousands of airplanes in flight suddenly without location information? The other system with a computer in each plane is more expensive but not prone to any common mode of failure short of EMP from nuclear war. Would there be sufficient backup in the ground computer system to avoid any remote chance of full system crash? (Literally, lots of planes suddenly unable to dodge mountains they had been counting on being able to dodge?) ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 20 Jul 84 10:52:54 pdt From: Rick McGeer (on an aaa-60-s) Message-Id: <8407201752.AA02344@ucbkim.ARPA> To: REM@MIT-MC, SPACE@MIT-MC Subject: Re: Geostar failure modes Foo. In such an event, aircraft would still have the radio and navigational aids they do now, from INS systems on large aircraft down to VOR indicators and ADF needles on small craft, plus (I should hope) navigational charts. Planes aren't robot controlled -- even Cessna 172's are piloted by people who have passed extensive written and flying exams. Rick. ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 22-Jul-84 0404 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #255 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 255 Today's Topics: Re: How long will a satellite stay in GEO? Re: Radiation from Sov. blast?? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 19 Jul 84 12:41:50-PDT (Thu) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: ihnp4!houxm!mhuxl!ulysses!burl!clyde!watmath!utzoo!henry @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: Re: How long will a satellite stay in GEO? > Radiation pressure itself won't cause a satellite's to decay very fast, > because accelerations on opposite sides of the orbit cancel out. The > fuel is mainly to keep satellites at the correct longitude. > > When comsats have exceded their useful lives they are boosted to a > somewhat larger orbit. Decay time from this orbit must be fairly long > for this to work (how much bigger are these orbits?). Not a lot bigger. Neither atmospheric decay nor radiation-pressure issues are very significant at 40000 km, where the Clarke ["geostationary"] Orbit is. As you point out, the staion-keeping fuel for a comsat is mostly to keep it at the right *place* in Clarke Orbit. A satellite boosted to a slightly higher orbit will be slightly higher for a long time, centuries at least I would think. -- Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology {allegra,ihnp4,linus,decvax}!utzoo!henry ------------------------------ Date: 19 Jul 84 12:37:36-PDT (Thu) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: ihnp4!houxm!mhuxl!ulysses!burl!clyde!watmath!utzoo!henry @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: Re: Radiation from Sov. blast?? > ......................... If so, and if any nukes cooked off in the blast, > perhaps the count in the rainwater rose a few weeks after the blast. ... Sorry to ruin your day, Eric, but nuclear weapons don't "cook off" in any very spectacular way. The most one would get would be a "fizzle" explosion, which would spray radioactive debris through the immediate vicinity, but wouldn't put anything substantial up into the stratosphere where it could travel long distances. Getting a nuclear explosion requires very fussy timing and just the right conditions; nuclear bombs are precision devices. [Obviously, I'm referring to their innards rather than their effects.] They explode properly only when triggered properly; anything else (fire, impact, mechanical damage) and they just go "splat" and make a nasty but fairly localized mess. -- Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology {allegra,ihnp4,linus,decvax}!utzoo!henry ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 24-Jul-84 0405 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #256 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 256 Today's Topics: Re: SPACE Digest V4 #254 Commercial use of space Zero defect systems Politics vs efficiency private space developement ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 23 Jul 84 11:48 EDT From: Marshall.wbst@XEROX.ARPA Subject: Re: SPACE Digest V4 #254 To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC.ARPA cc: Marshall.wbst@XEROX.ARPA A curious question.. Are the electronics in satellites exposed to the vacuum of space or are they enclosed in pressurized containers? --Sidney Marshall ------------------------------ Date: 23 Jul 84 1118 PDT From: Ron Goldman Subject: Commercial use of space To: space@MIT-MC.ARPA n114 2125 20 Jul 84 AM-SPACE By STEPHEN ENGELBERG c.1984 N.Y. Times News Service WASHINGTON - On the 15th anniversary of man's first steps on the moon, President Reagan announced on Friday a series of initiatives intended to speed commercial development of outer space. The Reagan administration immediately plans to remove several regulatory and tax obstacles to industrial use of space, according to an official who briefed reporters. It will also propose legislation to remedy ''discrimination'' in the tax code against space ventures, he said. Standing beside the three-man Apollo 11 crew that made the historic flight to the moon, Reagan said, ''We will do all we can to insure industry has routine access to space and a suitable, reliable place to work there.'' On July 20, 1969, Neil A. Armstrong and Col. Edwin E. Aldrin stepped onto lunar soil and Armstrong declared, ''One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind,'' while Col. Michael Collins orbited above in the command module. At the White House ceremony, Reagan echoed the words of President Kennedy, who initiated the manned space program in 1961 with a promise that the United States would land a man on the moon within 10 years. Reagan pledged that the United States would complete an orbiting space station ''within a decade.'' Congress has already authorized money for the first steps in designing such a project. - Reagan said the benefits from the commercial development of space ''literally dazzle the imaginiation.'' Factories, he said, would one day take advantage of the weightless environment to produce rare medicines, new metal alloys and super computer chips that could not be made on earth. The president also said the United States had entered a new era in space exploration with the successful flights of the space shuttle. ''The footprints on the moon showed us that America's future can be determined by our dreams and visions,'' he said. ''The shuttle and our space station will make those dreams come true.'' L.J. (Bud) Evans, NASA's associate deputy administrator for space, said the president hoped to clear away unintended obstacles posed by rules that were issued years before entrepeneurs began thinking about industry in space. Several regulations that define the products of orbiting businesses as imports would be changed immediately, he said. That would allow businesses to claim an investment tax credit as well as avoid tariffs in the future. The administration will also seek to rewrite current tax law so that joint ventures could receive a 25 percent tax credit for research and development not directly related to their existing business. Such a change, which would apply to all businesses, would be particularly helpful to space ventures because most of the companies involved have not worked on space-related ventures before. - Evans said the government would continue to play a substantial role in space, providing both transportation and orbiting facilities such as the space station. ''The government is going to pay for the large infrastructure, just like we do with the roads down here.'' he said. ''On the other hand, more and more private corporations will take over manufacturing.'' He added that major corporations and small companies were already gearing up to develop industry in space. In June, a McDonnell Douglas engineer, Charles Walker, became the first person from private industry to travel in space. McDonnell Douglas and Ortho Pharmaceutical, a division of Johnson & Johnson, are hoping to establish a multbillion-dollar market for pharmaceutical products made in space. Other companies have signed preliminary agreements with NASA to develop space products. nyt-07-21-84 0022edt *************** ------------------------------ Date: 23 Jul 1984 16:08:00-EDT From: Dale.Amon at CMU-RI-FAS Subject: Zero defect systems I very much agree with the let's get a piece of hardware and bang on it philosophy. It is indeed true that a prototype costs far more than a production model, but so what? The expenses are incurred in the hundreds of thousands of wasted manhours involved in shuffling inconsequential paper. This is not to say that all paper is inconsequential; there is a reasonable need for schematics, blueprints, ECO forms, computerized record keeping of parts from the production line, etc. It can be carried to extremes. I really can't imagine keeping records on individual resistors. 100% incoming inspection is probably a good idea, as well as burn in for infant mortality, IF the parts are used in life critical areas. If it is used in a radio and there are two radios, so what if one goes bad every few years? As the computer failures have shown, faults will occur anyway. And they'll occur in things that weren't thought of. What is needed in space systems is what in other fields we call Engineering common sense. My attitude from years of work in automation systems is that the best results are gained by getting prototype hardware and software together as earlier as possible. Your team gets experienced with the nature of the specific problem at hand, and then you use the prototype as a basis for a REAL system specification. You discover what bells and whistles come cheap, and which ones are so complex as to be uneconomic. An initial spec is not the holy scripture. If meeting the spec will be too costly, then you change the SPEC, not the DESIGN. If the overly costly item is absolutely critical, then you make an honest appraisal of the fact that the whole project is possible but not practical. At both the experimental prototype and production prototype stages, you run very harsh test conditions on your units, with the express purpose of making things fail. (Of course this goes through phases when life safety is involved. An aerospace craft has to have a first flight confidence level at least high enough that a Chuck Yeager wouldn't refuse to fly it... ------------------------------ Date: 23 Jul 1984 18:10:35-EDT From: Dale.Amon at CMU-RI-FAS Subject: Politics vs efficiency I'm cognizant of all the problems you noted, and find them an excellent reason for getting private enterprise to do it as quickly as possible. I have the suspicion that NASA may well find itself in danger of being passed up once the ball really gets rolling. I also suspect that such restriction will be less applicable to second generation shuttle technology, and scram jets. They'll be cheaper, shuttle flights will be so common that it won't be carry quite the same media interest, and thus won't have the scandal buster re-election value that it would at this time. It is quite accurate to state that the all or nothing character of the shuttle forced the program into a certain mode of operation. I just hope to see that type of thinking go the way of the dinosaurs (where it belongs) before it causes the space station to be similarly overpriced/pound. A friend of mine who owns one of the fledgling launch companies, when referring to a diagram showing everything from delta launchers, 747's and Cessna 172's clustered around the same $/lb ratio, (where his launcher also falls) and the shuttle off in the far upper right hand corner stated: "Don't ask ME why I'm so cheap; ask THEM why they're so expensive!" It's really a shame that politicians are such useless creatures. If we didn't have congress we'd have to invent it to keep them out of circulation. Hopefully we can one day soon apply the even better solution suggested in the Hitchhikers Guide Series. ------------------------------ Date: 23 Jul 1984 19:11:17-EDT From: Dale.Amon at CMU-RI-FAS Subject: private space developement (In answer to letter noting $125 engine being a rather heavy "subsidy") Mostly agree, however Truax is an anomaly. SSI is using modified Minuteman III engines built for them, everyone using solid fuel is having them poured to their own specs (mostly by Morton Thiokol). Another group (Starstruck) is doing it ENTIRELY from scratch. So is OTRAG (if it can find an American partner so it can continue testing). Another group is contracting out the modification of an existing high energy engine (H2-O2). It's other design is a from scratch construction of a rather unique engine. In the case of two of the companies mentioned above, the technologies were indeed studied by NASA, but were never built. Both bought up the patent rights. Personnel are quite easily pirated. One group was given the offer to actually build and fly something it had been studying to death for maybe 10 years or more. You can bet it didn't take very much to get them to pull up stakes and move to a small nongovernment contractor!! From what I heard, the ENTIRE group was pirated. I'd say more abouyt the technologies involved excpet I'm not sure what is confidential and what is not, so I'd rather say nothing. I also have it on good authority that one of the major aerospace companies will build a cheaper COMMERCIALLY oriented shuttle from internal capital sources as soon as the market has ripened a little more. I believe they are mainly waiting for the current shuttle to be desubsidized. I'm not going to knock NASA's efforts entirely. They have been a pathfinder. The shuttle is a marvelous piece of equipment because it is the ONLY spaceship we've got at this moment. So what if it becomes obsolete and noncompetitive in a couple of years? It will still have been money well spent (even if it could have been cheaper) if it kicks us over the edge of the real space age. The shuttle fleet will have earned their honored places in the Air and Space Museums of the 1990's. ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 25-Jul-84 0405 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #257 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 257 Today's Topics: Aviation Week Railgun Article Geostar reliability NCC/NX ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 24 Jul 1984 8:32-PDT From: dietz%USC-CSE@ECLA To: arms-d@MIT-MC.ARPA, space@MIT-MC.ARPA Reply-To: dietz@USC-ECL.ARPA Subject: Aviation Week Railgun Article The latest Aviation Week has the fifth (and final) article in their series on ballistic missile defense. The article discusses hypervelocity launchers, such as railguns. Some tidbits: Railguns have accelerated small (a few grams) lexan cubes to 10 km/sec with an energy efficiency of 40%. The next expermients are shooting for 20 km/sec and 50% efficiency. The ultimate goal is 100 km/sec at 100,000 gee's (with an accelerator 500 meters long), using a laser to drive a projectile with an ablative rear surface. (An aside: by launching deuterium-tritium pellets at one another at >= 100 km/sec one can possibly generate significant fusion energy.) In tests against actual ICBM components, gram size projectiles moving at 10 km/sec have been found to cause considerable damage (they can penetrate quarter-inch steel plate). The article includes a picture of a metal cylinder with a large, blackened hole in the side. Rail erosion problems during projectile startup have been solved by using gas injection. Studies have shown that hypervelocity launchers with homing projectiles deliver more energy per area at the target than lasers, particle beams, 25 KT nuclear ABMs or nuclear-pumped X-ray lasers (I'm not sure what systems they're comparing here). The military is considering using railguns as gatling gun replacements for close-in defense of ships against cruise missiles, and as long range artillery (50 miles) with terminally guided shells. Advances in active cooling are making very high velocity projectiles feasible in the atmosphere (this technology is borrowed from military reentry vehicle research). *** These things look much more technically feasible than laser BMD systems. At 100 km/sec you can reach LEO from GEO in under six minutes, which is fine for mid-course intercept. ------------------------------ Date: 24 Jul 1984 15:02:41-EDT From: Dale.Amon at CMU-RI-FAS Subject: Geostar Geostar will use multiple computers so that a crash or failure of one will not bring down the system. It is part of their planning that the system accessibility will be close to 100%. These are not amateurs. In fact, they probably understand the problem a great deal better than the turkeys who put together the "National Airspace Plan". THe FAA's interim system would not even INCLUDE most GA craft, because not very many of us would be able to afford it. I really hope for some sanity in avionics, such as Geostar may make possible. Flying is rapidly getting out of reach of those who would do it for the love of it. We need cheap aircraft, cheap upkeep, inexpensive avionics, lower taxes on fuel, less regulation, fewer military operations areas and similar travesties (ie are they protecting our airspace or conquering it?) and lower property taxes so that the number of small airfields will cease it's decline. I salute Dr. O'Neill's efforts. I'm quite certain Geostar is much more than a simple profit making venture to him. As someone stated before, SSI does indeed hold a majority of the stock, so benifits will certainly accrue where the money will be efficiently used for space developement R&D. In addition, he is also a GA IFR pilot and understands the problems GA now faces. I would like to note, since I have not seen it much publicized, that Geostar successfully completed it's field testing, has it's designs fairly well in hand, has (or soon will have) the frequencies allocated by the FCC, and has full financial support to build and launch the 3 satellites in the 1987 time frame, probably via shuttle. (Ie capital in the range of $100-250M is available to them) Contacts have stated they expect to be a fortune 500 after the first year of operation. Also of interest, I have been told the SSI R&D program is about a year ahead of schedule. They expect to be ready to have a preliminary exploratory unit sent to the moon around 1992. (Shuttle launch + commercial OTV) I believe it will be a prospecting vehicle of some sort, but I'll have to wait until I hear Morris Hornik talk about it when he speaks at our conference here in October. As you all may know, Mass Driver III, (either 1/3 or 1/2 scale prototype) has been tested out and accelerates 13,000G throught the first 3 coils. Design specs are for 18,000G. The initial design work on this pull only unit were done with a very slow Apple Basic program. They are now switching to a VAX, so the advances should come very quickly now. It's amazing what a few dollars in the hands of totally dedicated unshackled freethinkers can do. It's my guess that the next person on the moon may well be from the private sector. I really wish NASA were developing hardware that picked up where NERVA left off. That's an area that is unlikely to be picked up by private sector any time in the near future, mainly because of regulatory restraints. Even if it costs more to have gov't do it, at least they're harder to sue, and "we need it bad". Do you realize that the late 60's/early 70's Jackass Flats NERVA tests were for an engine with TWICE the specific impulse of the most advanced engine (the SSME) in existance today? So my challenge to all you guys at Ames, etc is, lets start REALLY pushing the envelope! (IE, tell your boss to tell his boss to get off his can and start acting less like a beaureaucrat and more like a space activist, like the young dreamers and romantics who STARTED NASA back in '58) Don't give me a boxcar of paper. Give me an interplanetary rocket engine. Now. If necessary, get your buddies together and give up your evenings and weekends and do it on your own time. Most of us in L5 and Spacepac haven't had a day to ourselves in over a year because of the fight for the space station. We don't expect any less out of anyone else. My attitude about earth is summed up by a favorite cliche of a former room mate. "Let's blow this popsicle stand..." ------------------------------ Date: 24 Jul 1984 18:12:46-EDT From: Dale.Amon at CMU-RI-FAS Subject: reliability My point is that when people are on board, and if the part does not have immediate life safety implications, the crew can fix or bypass the problem, thus making it a nonproblem. The reliability levels need be no higher than those on a Boeing 747, with the exception of components critical to boost phase or control of reentry angle. Those parts need to be of a similar reliability to autopilots and navigation systems rated for blind landing in 0-0 weather by an airliner with 400+ lives at stake. I am not talking about autonomous ten year probes: there lies an entirely different set of engineeering constraints. ------------------------------ Date: 24 Jul 84 15:24:20 EDT From: Deej To: space%mit-mc@CMU-CS-A Subject: NCC/NX NCC = Naval Construction Contract; NX ? Easy. Naval eXperimental. As in XB-17. XF-80. And so on. Deej DL02@cmu-cc-td ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 26-Jul-84 0405 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #258 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 258 Today's Topics: TOC NASA Activities v15, #6 Re: Radiation from Sov. blast?? Soviet Soyuz T-12 flight Soyuz T-12 flight, update 'Big' science, private space, and electronics ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 24 Jul 84 13:08:17-PDT (Tue) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: hplabs!hao!ames!eugene @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: TOC NASA Activities v15, #6 Administrator's Column [Summarizes years events] NASA Transfers Ownership of Viking Lander 1 to Museum Shuttle Mission 41-D Pre-Launch Statistics [Oh well!] Dr. Hans Mark Named to University of Texas Post Productivity Conference Held at Marshall NASA Signs Agreement with Israel for Earthquake Study Earth Observation Mission Payload Specialists Named H. William Wood Named to Tracking Networks Post NASA Selections 17 Astronaut Candidates [Full stats] Plasma Physics Experiments Continued at Wallops Astronaut Hart Leaves NASA Fine Guidance Sensors Tested ESP - NASA's Renewed Suggestion Program [Images: Space telescope wiring, IRAS mosaic of entire sky, image from fixed Solar Max, Thematic mapper image Landsat 5 (first)] Deere & Company Designing Metallurgical Tests Aboard Shuttle What's New in NASA Television and radio Programming Launch Activity ------------------------------ Date: 23 Jul 84 9:45:23-PDT (Mon) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: pur-ee!CS-Mordred!Pucc-H.Physics.els @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: Re: Radiation from Sov. blast?? Granted that strategic warheads are really touchy, but tactical warheads (the type which may have gone off in this incident) are designed to take quite a pounding and still function. Given what may have been a whole warehouse of these things, it is still possible that an intense source of heat could've triggered the conventional shaped charges which are used to initiate the nuclear explosion. Also, don't forget the quite obvious Soviet tendency toward carelessness. If these devices are meant to be armed inertially (i.e. upon firing) then a shock wave could accidentally arm some, making an explosion much more likely. I admit that I didn't feel it too likely that any went off (appreciably), but positive data from rainfall would allow certain unclassified conclusions to be drawn about the Soviet arsenal. I'm hoping that a discussion will start in net.physics about what (if any) conclusions might be drawn. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ "Someday, all this will be | yours!!" | A message from the mental maze that | calls itself: "What??? The curtains????" | | ERIC STROBEL --------------------------------| UUCP: {decvax,ucbvax,harpo,allegra,inuxc,seismo,teklabs}!pur-ee!Physics:els INTERNET: els @ pur-phy.UUCP ------------------------------ Date: 25 Jul 1984 13:33:35EPDT From: glenn at ll-vlsi To: SPACE@MIT-MC Subject: Soviet Soyuz T-12 flight The latest Soviet space flight (Soyuz T-12, launched July 17) has received almost no notice in the press here, perhaps because it seems old hat besides the space shuttle flights. Nevertheless on close inspection there are a number of interesting features of this Soyuz that indicate changes in the Soviet space program. Here are a list of the ones that I have noticed along with some personal projections of what they may mean. First the flight engineer in this 3 crew Soyuz is Svetlana Savitskaya, the woman who flew up to the Salyut about two years ago. The fact that she was sent up again after a relatively short period of time (as far as spaceflights go) indicates that she had little in the way of problems in adjusting to space. Also note that historically the Russians have sent their cosmonauts on only 3 missions, with the person going as engineer on the second flight, and mission commander on the third. Then that person has been moved up into the management of the space program. From the space spectacular point of view it would have made more sense to send a new woman up ("Now we have had 3 females in orbit and the US had only 1"). Hence it seems likely that Svetlana is being aimed at the position of commander of the womans' cosmonaut corp. A slight possibility is that she was the backup person for some other woman. We will know for certain if she gets a third flight in the near future as the mission commander. Either way it seems certain that the Soviets are expanding the use of woman in their programs. Secondly, the mission commander, Vladimir Dzhanibekov, is unusual also because this is his fourth mission when, as noted in the first point, the Russians have restricted their men to three missions before this. Hence the Soviets may be setting up their cosmonaut corp, which is rather large in number, to generate more highly experience spacemen. This suggests an expanded space program in the near future. It does not seem likely that he was simply the backup man, they have lots of two flight experienced men. Thirdly, the docking for this flight with the Salyut space station took place in a 355 x 335 Km orbit. However previously the Soyuz have followed a strict rule: two man crews have docked above 300 Km, while 3 crew ships docked below 300 Km. James Oberg calculated that previously the fuel needed to raise the ship to the higher orbit was 110 Kg, about the weight of one cosmonaut. Hence the need for this difference. Since the Salyut is always brought down to the rendezvous orbit prior to the launch this means that the Soviets have improved either the A-2 launcher or the Soyuz-T capsule, and will probably used such higher cargo capacity in the future (perhaps in their Progress cargo craft if it is the launcher). Fourthly, this mission started a little early for their current landing window, which is about July 24 according to Clarke in a recent Spaceflight magazine article. Due to safety restrictions the Russians only bring people down from their space station during a specific landing period that occurs for about one week every two months. The Russians have been launching ships only two days before the landing window opens so that if something goes wrong they can recover the capsule quickly and safely. This may indicate that the Soyuz has more supplies and can stay up longer (possibly related to point 3) or that they are will to extend their landing window from the hour before sunset restriction they have kept for almost the past decade. Either on has significant impacts on their manned program. Also as of 3 am GMT July 25 the Soviets had not stated that the Soyuz was leaving. Since all previous flights lasted only eight days for crew visits to the Salyut it will an important change if this one does last longer. Finally the fact that a flight occurred at this time means that the Salyut crew, which has been up for >170 days now, will not land before late September, from the point 4 restrictions. That will mean that they will have set a new record of about 240 days. If you want speculation on top of that consider that one of the station crew is a doctor. If they were going to try for a full one year mission then that is just what they would want on board to check that things were going well. If the Soyuz ships are exchanged in the current flight that makes a longer mission than 240 days more likely All in all this seems to be a rather unusual flight. Has any else noticed other strange facts about this one? Personally I find the contradiction shown by the comparison of the Soviet and western (especially US) space programs recently rather depressing. The Russian hardware is probably about what we could have made a decade ago, but they obviously have the will to push it to the limit and aggressively pursue manned efforts in space. This country has the hardware to do things better then the Soviets, but seems to lack the will to really push things. Look at battle the L5 society had to go through to insure the passage of the space station program's funding for the first year! That only means that we have a chance that in 1992 we could have something manned as often and long as the Salyut has been crewed for the past few years. Does anyone really think that when the funding costs really get high for the space station there will not be strong efforts to stretch the program out till 1995 or even 2000? That is what happened to the shuttle, and look at how the low funding of the early years is still creating problems in that program. If we are right about there being important and useful things for mankind that will come out of the space station I see considerable evidence to suggest the Russians will be producing them first over the next decade. Let us hope that their lack of advanced hardware will prevent them from getting too far ahead. Glenn Chapman ------------------------------ Date: 25 Jul 1984 23:02:54EPDT From: glenn at ll-vlsi To: SPACE@MIT-MC Subject: Soyuz T-12 flight, update As noted in the previous mail I sent the Soyuz T-12 flight has a number of unusual features. Some events new today (July 25) make it even more important. First Svetlana Savitskaya spent four hours in a space suit outside the Salyut space station, making her the first woman to walk in space. With her was the mission commander of the T-12 Vladimir Dzhanibekov. This time was spent doing experiments in electron beam welding and film sputtering. The Russian commentary was that these techniques were important for the construction of space colonies and large space stations. The fact that she spent so long outside enforces the point about Svetlana being aimed at some higher position; a simple one hour or less EVA test would have given them a space spectacular. Secondly the Soyuz T-12 shows no sign of returning to earth, and has already exceeded the eight day norm for such flights. To meet the current landing deadline it should come down before about Aug 1, but just when will be important. Finally there is the point did the space walkers use their own suits or not. If they are not the suits on board the Salyut (which have been used 5 times in the past year) did they bring them up themselves or were they sent up in the Progress 20 in June? If they brought the suits up themselves it would indicate a substantial increase in the lifting capacity of their orbital system for the Soyuz. Hey look it, the Russians are not letting any grass grow under their feet in space activities. Let us get a move on. Glenn Chapman ------------------------------ Date: 25 Jul 84 10:27:05-PDT (Wed) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: hplabs!nsc!ames!eugene @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: 'Big' science, private space, and electronics Facts: question: are electronic exposed to vaccuum or it is contained: answer: both. The fuse which blew in Solar MAX was a sealed fuse which apparently lost its gas. Other electronics on Galileo are exposed (to a degrees). I have not cared for the term 'common sense' since I was a kid. Too many people take too much for granted (assumption == ass of you and me, remember that joke, this is not meant as an insult) with regard to space. We have a lot of visitors to NASA Centers, and they usually remark on the 'incredible scale of things'. (Especially manned space facilities.) I think science and engineering are reaching points where it is difficult to do work in the garage like Hewett and Packard did. Witness the big magnets and lasers at LLNL for fusion energy research, note that all the companies doing molecular biology work: emphasis, the number of PhDs they have, BS level bio is not yet enough: they are still cracking individual genes and have yet to discover computers. Carl Sagan noted in 1978 that NASA has a "mission must not fail" attitude. Agreed. Hans Mark, James Beggs, and others want NASA to remain a research organization. We want out of the space trucking business. Who wants to assume the Shuttle? No one with money yet. Some argue that smaller scale will be better. How many of you have put serious money into these firms? Just curious. Al Globius and I may disagree on a number of points: e.g., I want more unmanned deep space exploration , but we are basically a research organization. Private space, come on in, but we warn you, development won't be easy, things don't work like you expect them to: anybody have a 'cure' for space sickness which is 100% effective? I think we both argee that there is too much bureacracy in the Government: it will eventually drive me into the private sector. The current net.followup discussion on Proxmire has some relvance. Men like that keep some people on their toes, but also create more bureacracy. Why doesn't hit the military waste more? IS he an agent for the Pentagon doing a distracting action? {joking}. My God, what am I doing here! --eugene miya ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 27-Jul-84 0403 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #259 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 259 Today's Topics: Re: TOC NASA Activities v15, #6 Re: Friday George Low ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 25 Jul 84 11:08:36-PDT (Wed) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: ihnp4!inuxc!inuxd!arlan @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: Re: TOC NASA Activities v15, #6 Someone ought to tell whoever wrote that last newspaper announcement here in net.space that Walker did not travel into space in June (or if he did, it wasn't aboard Discovery---hmmm, maybe McDonnell-Douglas has something going we don't know about?) --arlan ------------------------------ Date: 16 Jul 84 17:11:00-PDT (Mon) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: hplabs!hp-pcd!hpfcla!hpfclo!jad @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: Re: Friday > /***** hpfclo:net.space / opus!atkins / 3:52 pm Jul 18, 1984*/ > What if you are only 16 years old?? That is clearly no excuse. I am only 23 years old, though I know (fairly well ... propaganda being what it is on both sides of the Fe2O3 curtain (sorry, no subscripts)) just what happened way back in 1776. So 'cmon .... let's remember history includes things that happened before you were born -- sometimes in these days of high-tech that's easy to forget. Look at how "ancient" some 15 year old machines are (oh, sorry, I forgot you're only 16, and wouldn't have been programming at age 1). :-) "In the shadow of the moon ..." -- john -- aka John Dilley, [ihnp4] !hpfcla!jad. ------------------------------ Date: 26 Jul 1984 16:32:54-EDT From: Hank.Walker at CMU-CS-UNH Subject: George Low George Low, who was head of NASA through much of the Apollo program and an enthusiastic early backer of the program, died recently of cancer. His son just became an astronaut. ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 29-Jul-84 0404 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #260 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 260 Today's Topics: Politics vs. space -- Mondale? Re: Politics vs. space -- Mondale? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 26 Jul 84 10:38:00-PDT (Thu) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: hplabs!hp-pcd!hpfcla!ajs @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: Politics vs. space -- Mondale? Does anyone know what Mondale's real position is on NASA funding and space exploration? For some strange reason :-), the popular media hasn't mentioned this aspect of party and candidate platforms. We all know what Reagan's position is. What about Mondale? Does he still want to kill the Shuttle program, as it is rumored he did some years ago, or has he come around yet? (Please post short responses; thanks in advance) Alan Silverstein ------------------------------ id AA18857; Sat, 28 Jul 84 12:23:39 pdt id AA09118; Sat, 28 Jul 84 12:24:48 pdt Date: Sat, 28 Jul 84 12:24:48 pdt From: Rick McGeer (on an h19-u) Message-Id: <8407281924.AA09118@ucbkim.ARPA> Phone: (415) 236-8262 To: hplabs!hp-pcd!hpfcla!ajs@Berkeley, space@Mit-Mc.ARPA Subject: Re: Politics vs. space -- Mondale? Cc: Does [Mondale] still want to kill the Shuttle program, as it is rumored he did some years ago, or has he come around yet? (Please post short responses; thanks in advance) There was nothing "rumoured" about Mondale's hatred of the Shuttle -- he introduced a bill to kill it every year he was in the Senate. I think that you can expect the space station to be killed if Mondale wins, as well as tax incentives for private development of space. The Shuttle program will almost certainly be left intact, since it's too big a commitment to walk away from. However, I would be extremely surprised if the fifth orbiter is ever built, or any of the heavy-lift vehicles now on the drawing board. Rick. ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 30-Jul-84 0408 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #261 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 261 Today's Topics: Return of the optical telescopes ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 30 Jul 84 0044 PDT From: Ross Finlayson Subject: Return of the optical telescopes To: space@MIT-MC.ARPA n006 0621 29 Jul 84 BC-TELESCOPES By WALTER SULLIVAN c.1984 N.Y. Times News Service NEW YORK - After almost a quarter century of debate, final designs have been chosen for two optical telescopes, each of which will be far larger than any now in existence. One, the National New Technology Telescope, is to be a four-mirror assemblage with the light-gathering power of a single mirror 15 meters, or about 590 inches, in diameter. Its total cost is estimated at about $200 million, and it is hoped that funds to begin construction can be included in the budget for the fiscal year 1987. The other, to be built by the University of California atop 13,825-foot Mauna Kea in Hawaii, will have a single 10-meter reflecting area formed of 36 hexagonal segments. Its construction seems assured by a gift of $36 million from the Marion O. Hoffman Trust. The largest telescope now operating in this nation is the five-meter reflector on Palomar Mountain in California. It is exceeded in size only by the six-meter telescope at Zelenchukskaya in the Caucasus Mountains of the Soviet Union. Two sites are under consideration for the national telescope: Mauna Kea or Mount Graham, a 10,720-foot summit 70 miles northeast of Tucson, Ariz.. Choice of the 15-meter multimirror design for that telescope culminates 24 years of study, testing and discussion. In 1960 two national committees began exploring ways to achieve a major increase in telescope power. Consideration was also given to a design with a 25-meter reflecting area. One challenge in constructing so large a reflector is to insure that it maintains a precisely parabolic shape regardless of temperature changes and sagging stresses as it sweeps the sky. For a mirror to focus an image clearly, the shape cannot become distorted by more than a fraction of the wavelengths of light being observed. In addition, the multimirror telescope had to be designed so that light-path distances from all four mirrors to the focal plane were identical. Each of its four 7.5-meter mirrors will be larger than any made to date. While various designs were proposed for the national telescope, the finalists were the multimirror concept and a single 15-meter mirror formed of about 60 hexagonal segments. Each segment would have to be constantly adjusted to insure that the assembly maintains its precise shape. This is is the approach chosen for the California telescope. The committee charged by the National Optical Astronomy Observatories to choose a design for the national telescope said that since both approaches were promising, it was ''healthy'' that both are being tried. The recently reorganized National Optical Astronomy Observatories operates the Advanced Development Program that will supervise design and construction of the instrument, along with the Kitt Peak National Observatory near Tucson, the National Solar Observatory, with facilities on Kitt Peak and Sacramento Peak, N.M., and the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile. It is supervised by a consortium of universities under contract with the National Science Foundation. The effectiveness of the multimirror concept has been shown by the telescope operated by the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory and the University of Arizona on Mount Hopkins, near Tucson. Its six mirrors have the combined area of a 4.5-meter reflector. Its aim, like that of a large gun, is controlled by a combination of rotation and elevation. Since rotation and elevation rates must be constantly adjusted to maintain aim on a moving star field, computer control is essential. The new telescopes will be mounted in this manner, as is the Soviet instrument. The Hoffman Trust that will help finance the University of California's telescope is derived from the estates of Max Hoffman, an importer of European automobiles, and his widow, who died last year. The University of Texas has been planning a seven-meter telescope, but it has not yet been financed. nyt-07-29-84 0919edt ********** ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 31-Jul-84 0404 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #262 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 262 Today's Topics: Mondale and the space program Soviet Soyuz T-12 flight ending tethered satellite ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 30 Jul 1984 12:37:40EPDT From: glenn at ll-vlsi To: SPACE@MIT-MC Subject: Mondale and the space program Mondale's dislike of manned space flight goes back before the shuttle debates. He was in charge of the senate committee which investigated the Apollo fire and deaths. Apparently he got very upset at the way NASA people were, to his mind, trying to shift the blame elsewhere. One comment I have read was that Mondale felt that he was being lied to and from that date became extremely anti NASA. During the shuttle debates a bill he sponsored came within four votes of killing the program. More recently when the space station program was announced Mondale was asked about it at a news conference. His comments were that it was that NASA had not demonstrated a that the space station would be useful and that better science could be done for less by concentrating on unmanned probes etc. That last comment I felt was to show that he was for scientific research in that field, but Mondale did not commit himself to any strong program there either. However, has anyone heard a fuller statement on his position? Glenn Chapman ------------------------------ Date: 30 Jul 1984 12:56:56EPDT From: glenn at ll-vlsi To: SPACE@MIT-MC Subject: Soviet Soyuz T-12 flight ending The Soyuz T-12 flight landed July 29 after spending twelve days in space. That is about 50% longer than the usual eight day flights for the crews visiting their space station. However they landed with the T-12 capsule instead of switching it with the one held on the Salyut. This suggests that either the station crew will be coming down in mid September or a new set of visitors will be going up then. They will be forced to do something then do to the life limits on their Soyuz. Some comments by the Russians after the Soyuz landed made it seem that this may be very long space station mission. The Russian press made a big thing out of Svetlana's space walk. Indeed it said that the man that accompanied her was there to assist her and for safety reasons. Other comments made it obvious that she was destined for even more work in their space program. Glenn Chapman ------------------------------ Date: 31 Jul 84 0243 PDT From: Ron Goldman Subject: tethered satellite To: space@MIT-MC.ARPA n129 0015 31 Jul 84 BC-TETHER (ScienceTimes) By WALTER SULLIVAN c. 1984 N.Y. Times News Service NEW YORK - The ''skyhook,'' a concept with deep roots in history, is still alive in the minds of men. ''Let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach into heaven,'' said the descendents of Noah, according to the Book of Genesis. But to thwart such an impious project the Lord confused the builders with a multitude of languages and the Tower of Babel was never built. The idea of a tower that, in a sense, reached to heaven was revived in a series of proposals, beginning in 1895, for the building of cable-car systems or other ''highways'' into space. Their direct descendent is a scheme of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration for a satellite tethered to a space shuttle by a 60-mile cable. It was in 1895 that Konstantin E. Tsiolkovsky, the original Russian dreamer of space travel, proposed building a tower on the Equator that would reach beyond geostationary altitude. At the geostationary height, 22,300 miles above the earth, the motion of an object in a west-to-east orbit keeps pace with the earth's rotation. It therefore remains stationary relative to features on the earth beneath it. While gravity would pull on that part of a tower's structure below that elevation, the stress could be compensated by centrifugal force of the earth's rotation, Tsiolkovsky reasoned, if the tower were extended beyond geostationary height. ''The point is,'' he wrote of such a tower, ''that the top part aspires to fly due to the centrifugal force; while the lower part pulls in the opposite direction.'' In the 1960s there were several proposals in which the structure, instead of being built up from the earth, would be suspended from orbiting objects whose combined center of gravity was at geostationary elevation. Y.N. Artsutanov in the Soviet Union, who suggested such an anchor in space, envisioned it supporting a ''funicular'' or system of cable cars that would carry payloads into the cosmos. Six years later John D. Isaacs of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography and three colleagues, apparently unaware of the Russian proposals, published in the journal Science a similar scheme that they called the ''Skyhook.'' Once cargo passed the geosynchronous level, they pointed out, the energy of the earth's rotation would throw it off into space. This energy, they added, might even be used to lift the load from the earth's surface. ''Very large masses could be slung into space,'' they said. A Skyhook could also be used to support a laboratory at the geosynchronous level, deliver supplies to spacecraft, collect energy or material from space or support very tall structures on Earth. The proposal was published despite doubts by the journal referees as to its practicalty. A seemingly insurmountable problem was providing a cable thousands of miles long, strong enough to carry the load, yet not so heavy that it would break of its own weight. Closer to the planned NASA missions was one for a low-level, geostationary communications satellite proposed in 1969 in the Journal of the British Interplanetary Society by A.R. Collar and J.W. Flower. The satellite would be kept close enough to the earth for low-power communications by being suspended from a satellite high enough so the combined gravity of both vehicles would be at geostationary level. The first tests of a tethering scheme were initiated in 1981 by Prof. James G. Anderson of Harvard University. They consisted of lowering an instrument package as much as 12 miles below a balloon at very high altitude, then reeling it back up again to obtain data at many levels of the stratosphere. The space missions now being planned call for a space shuttle to deploy a tethered capsule that, with its own propulsion, will be able to climb higher or descend lower than the shuttle's own orbit. This will enable it to make observations in relatively ''hot'' regions of the Van Allen radiation belt, above the shuttle orbit, or descend into upper fringes of the atmosphere where, because of drag, the shuttle itself could not long remain. This Tethered Satellite System is sponsored by the American and Italian space agencies, which have invited researchers to submit proposals for its first three flights. On the first mission it is planned to project the capsule 12 miles upward with instruments to record the earth's magnetic field as well as high energy particles magnetically trapped in the Van Allen radiation belt. On the next mission, a year later, it is planned to send the capsule down to make atmospheric observations. The third mission would again be above the shuttle. As presently planned the capsule will be a 1,000-pound sphere, five feet in diameter, equipped with gas jets to control its deployment out to 60 miles from the shuttle. The tether is a Kevlar cable one-sixteenth of an inch thick that weighs only 3.56 pounds per mile and has a breaking strength of 650 pounds. Instruments can be attached to the capsule on long arms. On each flight it will be left deployed for about 16 hours before being reeled in. The project was devised by two Italians associated with the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory in Cambridge, Mass., Mario D. Grossi and the late Giuseppe Columbo. Last summer about 150 specialists from government, industry and academia conducted a workshop on applications of tethered satellites and the findings have been summarized in a NASA memorandum by Georg von Tiesenhausen of the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala. nyt-07-31-84 0313edt *************** ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 01-Aug-84 0404 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #263 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 263 Today's Topics: Why space? How does Geostar work? Re: Why space? Space tether ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 30 Jul 84 9:08:43-PDT (Mon) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: pur-ee!wd9get @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: Why space? Here's one to get the net going. What is your best argument for why the U.S. should spend megabucks on the space program. I realize the people on this net don't need convincing, but what argument(s) would you use on Joe Average about why we spend money to shoot people to space and not pay his medicare bills? If you mail your arguments to me, I will summarize to the net. Keith E. Brandt pur-ee!wd9get ------------------------------ Date: 31 Jul 1984 0920-EDT From: John Redford To: space at MC cc: redford at SHORTY Subject: How does Geostar work? Message-ID: <"MS10(2124)+GLXLIB1(1136)" 12035701020.30.583.8382 at DEC-MARLBORO> Can someone on the net tell us how the Geostar navigation system works? The accuracies claimed for it are much higher than those for the military Navstar system (less than 1 meter positioning accuracy versus 30 meters). However, the Geostar ground units are simpler (they do not need an accurate time base) and they use fewer satellites (four versus eighteen). How can they do so much better with so much less? Technical answers only please, not flames about the inferiority of anything done by the government. John Redford DEC-Hudson ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 31 Jul 84 10:41:46 pdt From: Rick McGeer (on an aaa-60-s) Message-Id: <8407311741.5390@ucbchip.ARPA> To: space@MIT-MC.ARPA Subject: Re: Why space? Here are two good reasons: (1) In direct benefits alone (weather forecasting, mineral discoveries, communications), the space program has more than paid for itself (all in, Mercury to the Shuttle, the cost of the program has been about $50 billion. Better weather prediction has been worth conservatively ten times that, just counting better crop yields, less damage from hurricanes, and so forth. Mining discoveries are worth easily $500 billion as well). When spinoff benefits - chips, doppler ultrasound, velcro, all manner of materials, and so forth - are counted, the program has paid off a hundredfold over our investment. (2) Is it merely our lot to trudge this earth between birth and the grave, wondering where our next meal is coming from, keeping our mind and our eyes firmly upon the mud that we tread? Or should we, in these niggling few years that a cruel nature allots us, strive, seek, find and never yield? The space program is man's answer to the ultimate challenge of the universe, and to our highest calling. It seems to me that $25 for each of us is not too large a price to pay to wander among the stars, instead of trudging in the muck. Rick. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 31 Jul 84 21:05:23 cdt From: Duncan A. Buell To: Space-Enthusiasts%mit-mc.arpa@csnet-relay.csnet Subject: Space tether Volume 4, Issue 262 addresses "real" attempts to hang a skyhook from a satellite. This was the central theme of a science-fiction story I read a year or two ago, which I cannot now find. I cannot, of course (such is the nature of the universe), remember author or title. Anyone else remember it? The chief engineering problem of the story was the strength of the cable. They used some newfangled wonder fibre. Are people now really serious about this? ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 02-Aug-84 0405 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #264 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 264 Today's Topics: Apollo 2-6 Re: Apollo 2-6 Space Tether ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 1 Aug 84 10:51:30 PDT (Wednesday) From: Holbrook.ES@XEROX.ARPA Subject: Apollo 2-6 To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC.ARPA A question that is probably often asked: What happened to Apollo missions 2-6? Were they so upset after the disaster of Apollo 1 that they canceled those missions? Paul ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 1 Aug 84 13:56:08 pdt From: Rick McGeer (on an aaa-60-s) Message-Id: <8408012056.5970@ucbchip.ARPA> To: Holbrook.ES@XEROX.ARPA, Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC.ARPA Subject: Re: Apollo 2-6 I thought that Apollo 2-6 were all unmanned missions. No? Rick. ------------------------------ Date: 1 Aug 1984 17:44:25-EDT From: Peter.Su at CMU-CS-GANDALF Subject: Space Tether There have been numerous stories about this; one of the better-known and better-written is _The Fountains of Paradise_ by Arthur C Clarke, the first postulator of communications sattelites in geosynchronous orbit. It covers the designing and building of an "Orbital Tower", the main load-bearing cable of which is made of, I believe, a monomolecular carbon filament. Interesting subplots, such as the fact that the ideal location is located on top of Sri Kanda, the Sacred Mountain, location of an Oriental monastery... Very good book -- but then, what else does Clarke write? Deej dl02@cmu-cc-td ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 03-Aug-84 0405 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #265 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 265 Today's Topics: Re: SPACE Digest V4 #263 Re: How Does Geostar Work? Re: How Does Geostar Work? tethered satellite stories Apollo 2-6 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 2 Aug 84 09:44:18 PDT (Thursday) Subject: Re: SPACE Digest V4 #263 To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC.ARPA From: Nick Re: Duncan A. Buell's "skyhook" story. It was probably Arthur C. Clarke's Fountains of Eden. \\ Nick ------------------------------ Date: 2 Aug 1984 8:49-PDT From: dietz%USC-CSE@ECLA To: vlsi@DEC-MARLBORO.ARPA cc: space@MIT-MC.ARPA, redford@shorty Subject: Re: How Does Geostar Work? Geostar works by triangulation. A signal addressed to a portable tranceiver is sent from the central ground station via one of the satellites. The ground unit then emits a very short omnidirectional microwave pulse (with ID information included). All four satellites receive this pulse, and transmit it back to the ground station. Time delays are used to compute position. The position is then transmitted back to the ground unit. The Geostar ground unit is simply a microwave tranceiver capable of emitting high power (500 watts, I believe) short duration pulses, along with some fast control logic to detect when the unit is being polled and to receive and display position information. Average power consumption is low, because the pulses are so short (a microsecond?). The Navstar system uses passive ground units, since they must operate in combat conditions where radio silence is critical. These passive units must do the triangulation themselves, so they are expensive. Paul Dietz dietz%usc-cse@usc-ecl ------------------------------ Date: 2 Aug 1984 8:49-PDT From: dietz%USC-CSE@ECLA To: redford@shorty cc: space@MIT-MC.ARPA Subject: Re: How Does Geostar Work? Geostar works by triangulation. A signal addressed to a portable tranceiver is sent from the central ground station via one of the satellites. The ground unit then emits a very short omnidirectional microwave pulse (with ID information included). All four satellites receive this pulse, and transmit it back to the ground station. Time delays are used to compute position. The position is then transmitted back to the ground unit. The Geostar ground unit is simply a microwave tranceiver capable of emitting high power (500 watts, I believe) short duration pulses, along with some fast control logic to detect when the unit is being polled and to receive and display position information. Average power consumption is low, because the pulses are so short (a microsecond?). The Navstar system uses passive ground units, since they must operate in combat conditions where radio silence is critical. These passive units must do the triangulation themselves, so they are expensive. Paul Dietz dietz%usc-cse@usc-ecl ------------------------------ Date: 2 Aug 1984 14:41:29-EDT From: Hank.Walker at CMU-CS-UNH Subject: tethered satellite stories A recent one is "Tank-Farm Dynamo" by David Brin in the November 1983 Analog. A space station is created out of two groups of shuttle external tanks connected together by cables. Shuttles take advantage of the fact that the lower platform is moving slower than orbital velocity by "landing" on it and transfering their payload. The dynamo effect of a cable moving through magnetic fields is used to pump energy into the stations orbit to compensate for atmospheric drag. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 2 Aug 84 10:51:41 pdt From: David Smith Message-Id: <8408021751.AA01896@HP-MARS> To: space%mc@csnet-relay.arpa Subject: Apollo 2-6 Cc: dsmith@csnet-relay.arpa Source-Info: From (or Sender) name not authenticated. The spacecraft which burned on the pad was known as Apollo 204 for some reason. I think (but am not at all sure) it was also counted as Apollo 4. One unmanned Apollo was lofted into a high suborbital trajectory, then rammed into the atmosphere at 25000 mph to test the heat shield. David Smith dsmith%hp-labs@csnet-relay ...!ucbvax!hplabs!dsmith Formerly at Cmu-cs-ius.arpa ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 04-Aug-84 0403 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #266 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 266 Today's Topics: Early Saturn-Apollo flights Space Tether Where/How to buy used and surplus space equipment Why did the US let Skylab die? Jilted Crew Reassigned RE: Why Space? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 3 Aug 1984 8:06:23 EDT (Friday) From: Tom Reid Subject: Early Saturn-Apollo flights To: space-enthusiasts@mit-mc The Saturn-Apollo 200 series flights used a Saturn-1B first stage with 1.6M lbs. of thrust to lift a Saturn-IVB second stage (which was also used for the third stage of the Saturn 500 series). Flight 201 merely tested the first and a single burn of the second stage with recovery of the booster. On flight 202, the second stage was to ignite briefly to simulate a low level spacecraft abort. 202 had problems with fuel lines catching fire and I can't remember whether the second burn actually occurred. 203 was to simulate a high level abort so the second stage burned longer. I believe that 203 also left its S-IVB second stage in orbit as space lab. 204 was to have been the first manned flight until the space capsule caught fire. ------------------------------ Date: 3 Aug 1984 08:56-EDT Sender: MHARRIS@BBNF.ARPA Subject: Space Tether From: MHARRIS@BBNF.ARPA To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC.ARPA Cc: MHarris@BBNF.ARPA Message-ID: <[BBNF.ARPA] 3-Aug-84 08:56:54.MHARRIS> Mr. Buell might have been thinking of , co-authored by Larry Niven. A potboiler with gyrating wired-together spacecraft and terrorist complications. Not bad, really. --mh ...at Fritz Electronics -- 'everything we have is on the fritz' ------------------------------ Message-ID: <18615@Wayne-MTS> Date: Wed, 1 Aug 84 11:16:04 EDT From: Michael_D'Alessandro%Wayne-MTS%UMich-MTS.Mailnet@MIT-MULTICS.ARPA To: space@MIT-MC.ARPA Subject: Where/How to buy used and surplus space equipment About 2 years ago I read an article in Omni about a person who bought used and surplus space items from NASA. Among the items he owned were space suits, spare satellite parts, and even a complete, unused backup satellite. It seems that the way he did this was by combing through catalogs of government auctions which listed every now and then space items, and attending those auctions. He was able to pick up this stuff at fire-sale prices. Has anyone heard anything else about this? Would anyone know where I could write away to to obtain these catalogs of stuff the government auctions off? How does NASA dispose of surplus/obsolete space artifacts? Michael D'Alessandro ------------------------------ Message-ID: <18621@Wayne-MTS> Date: Wed, 1 Aug 84 11:22:32 EDT From: Michael_D'Alessandro%Wayne-MTS%UMich-MTS.Mailnet@MIT-MULTICS.ARPA To: space@MIT-MC.ARPA Subject: Why did the US let Skylab die? One thing I've never understood is why the US never tried to save Skylab. From what I've read, NASA had planned to fly one of the early shuttle missions to Skylab to attach a new engine to it to boost it to a higher orbit in order to save it. This plan was based on the assumption by NASA that the shuttle was going to be ready in about 1978, which it obviously wasn't. However, my question is: if NASA knew that it couldn't get to Skylab with the shuttle in time, why didn't they launch an unmanned vehicle to rendezvous with Skylab to boost it into a higher orbit? Would there be technical difficulties with such a plan, or did NASA not do it so they could obtain a *new* space station; instead of having to refurbish Skylab? It seemed to me to be such a waste to let such a huge station be destroyed. It sure would have been nice to have to work in concert with the shuttle, until the new space station is launched in the 1990's. Michael D'Alessandro ------------------------------ Date: 1 Aug 84 5:15:46-PDT (Wed) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: ihnp4!mgnetp!burl!ulysses!allegra!alice!alb @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: Jilted Crew Reassigned The five crewmembers who were bumped from their flight due to the combined mission have been reassigned to a shuttle mission scheduled to blast off on 12 February, 1985. With the crew, commanded by astronaut Karol Bobko, will be a sixth crew member, a French mission specialist. ------------------------------ Date: 2 Aug 84 21:00:37-PDT (Thu) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: decvax!tektronix!tekig1!mikeha @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: RE: Why Space? It may not be possible to convince Joe Average of the benefits of continued funding of NASA and research in space, generally. Still, an attempt should be made. For "ammunition", I refer Mr. Brandt to "the dean of space-age fiction". Robert Heinlein has made a living of pointing out in many not-so-subtle ways that the exploration of space is one of those rare government-sponsored projects that has created more wealth than it has consumed, one way or the other. Apropos (and, most especially apropos) Mr. Average's preference for having his medical care subsidized, see "Spinoff" in Heinlein's _E_x_p_a_n_d_e_d _U_n_i_v_e_r_s_e (c. 1980, Robt. Heinlein, published by Ace Books, N.Y., NY) The article is primarily an abridgement of Heinlein's testimony before the House Select Committee on Aging and the House Committee on Science and Technology on the subject of "Applications of Space Technology for the Elderly and Handi- capped." Heinlein points out a number of the life-prolonging medical spinoffs of space technology, rather colorfully illustrating his points by relating the use of these spin- offs in the case of a medical problem of his own. Joe Average might consider what another ten years of life is worth. No, I don't mean ten years of decrepitude, but ten healthy years made possible by a technology that would not exist but for the space program. ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 05-Aug-84 0405 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #267 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 267 Today's Topics: NASA Astronaut candidates Relative costs of Geostar and Navstar Goodbye all Ariane 3 launch successful ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 3 Aug 84 8:47:07-PDT (Fri) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: hplabs!ames!eugene @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: NASA Astronaut candidates [] As requested by several people, from NASA Activites, v15, n6 Jun 84: NASA Select 17 Astronaut Candidates NASA has announced 17 astronaut candidates for the Space Shuttle Program. Seven are pilot candidates and 10 are mission specialist astronaut candidates. They will report to NASA's Johnson Space Center, Houston, this summer to begin a yearlong program of training and evaluation. Successful candidates will begin training assignments leading to selection for Space Shuttle flight crews. Three of the mission specialist candidates are women and one pilot is Hispanic. For of the mission speialists are currently employed at the Johnson Space Center and one is employed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA. NASA received 4,934 applications and 128 applicants were interviewed and given medical examinations at Johnson. The list follows: James C. Adamson, Major, US Army, March 3, 1946; Warsaw, NY; Seabrook, TX; Geneseo Central High School, NY, bachelor's degree in engineering, US Military Acad., 1969, and master's degree in aeronautics and mechanical engineering, Princeton Univ., 1977; Flight Controller, Systems Division, Johnson Space Center, Houston, TX; Mr. and Mrs. Herman Adamson, Geneseo, NY. Mark H. Brown, Capt, USAF, Nov. 18, 1951, Valparasio, Ind.; Pearland, Texas; Valparsio, High School, bachelor's degree in aeronautical and astronautical engineering, Purdue, Univ., 1973, master's in astronautical engineering, AF Inst. of Tech., 1980; Pilot F-4 replacement Training Unit, Homestead AFB; Mr. and Mrs. Richard S. Brown, Valparsio, Ind. Kenneth D. Cameron, Major USMC,; Nov. 29, 1949, Cleveland, OH; Patuxent River, Md.; Rocky River High School, Rocky River, Oh, bachelor's and master's degrees in aeronautics and astronautics, MIT, 1978 and 1979; Project Officer, Marine Aviation Detachment, Naval Air Test Center, Patuxent River Md.; Mr. and Mrs. Donald B. Cameron, Westport, Conn. Manley L. Carter, Jr., Comdr., US Navy, August 15, 1947, Macon, Ga; California, Md; Lanier High School, Macon, Ga., bachelor's degree in chemistry, Emory University, 1969 and doctor of medicine degree, Emory University, 1973; Test Pilot Under Instruction, Naval Air Test Center, Patuxent River, Md; Mr. and Mrs. Manley L. Carter, Sr., Warner Robins, Ga. John H. Casper, Lt. COl, USAF; July 9 1943, Greenville, SC; Alexandria, VA; Chamblee High School, GA, bachelor's degree in astronautics and engineering science, USAF Acad., 1966, master's in astronautics, Purdue, Univ, 1967, Dep. CHief, Special Projects Office, Headquarters, USAF, Washington DC; Mr. and Mrs. John Casper, Gainesville, Ga. Frank L. Culbertson, Jr., Lt. Condr,. US Navy; May 15, 1949, Charleston, SC, Lexington Park, Md.; Holly Hill High School, SC, Bachelor's degree in aerospace engineering, US Naval Acad, 1971; Naval Aviation, F-14 Replacement Air Group, Naval Air Station Oceana, Va.; Dr. and Mrs. Frank L. Culbertson, Sr., Holly Hill, SC. Sidney M. Gutierrez, Capt., USAF, June 27, 1951, Albuquerque, NM, Edwards, CA, Valley High School, Albuquerque, NH, bachelor's degree in aerospace engineering, US AF Acad., 1973, master;s in management, Webster College, 1977; Test Pilot, Air Force Flight Test Center, Edwards, AFB, CA; Mr. and Mrs. Robert A. Gutierrez, Alburquerque, NM. Lloyd B. Hammond, Jr., Capt., USAF, Jan. 16, 1952, Savannah, Ga., Edwards, Ca.; Kirkwood High School, Miss., bachelor's degree in engineering mechanics, USAF Academy, 1973, and master's, Georgia Inst. of Technology, 1974, Instructor Pilot, USAF Test Pilot School, Edwards AFB; Mr. and Mrs Lloyd B. Hammond, Sr. Marsha S. Ivins, April 15, 1951, Maltimore, Md.; Webster, Texas; Nether Providence High School, Wallingford, Pa., and bachelor's degree in aerospace engineering, Univ. of Colorado, 1973; Flight Simulation Engineer, Aircraft Operations Division, Johnson Space Center, Houston; Mr. and Mrs. Joseph L. Ivins, Wallingford, Pa. Mark C. Lee, Capt., USAF, Aug. 14, 1952, Viroqua, Wis.; Layton, Utah; Viroqua High Scool, Wis.; bachelor's degree in civil engineering, USAF Academy, 1974, and master's degree in mechanical engineering, MIT, 1980; F-16 test pilot, 388 Tactical Fighter Wing, Hill AFB, Utah; Mr. and Mrs. Charles M. Lee, Viroqua, Wis. George D. Low; Feb. 19, 1956, Cleveland; Pasadena, CA; Langley High School, McLean, Va., bachelor's degree in physics, Washington & Lee Univ., 1978, bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering, Cornell Univ., 1980, and master's degree in aeronautics and astronautics, Stanford, Univ., 1983; spacecraft system engineer, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA; Mr. [ed., Just recently deceased] and Mrs. George M. Lowe, NY. Michael J. McCulley, Lt. Comdr., US Navy; Aug. 4, 1943, San Diego, CA; Virginia Beach, VA; Livingston Academy, Tenn., bachelor's and master's degrees in metallurgical engineering, Purdue Univ., 1970; Operations Officer, Attack Squardron Thirty-Fivre, USS Nimitz, Naval Air Station Oceana, Va; Mr. and Mrs. Gibson H. McCulley, both deceased. William M. Shepherd, Lt. Comdr., US Navy; July 26, 1949, Oak Ridge, Tenn.; Virginia Beach, Va; Arcadia High School, Scottsdale, Ariz., bachelor's degree in aerospace engineering, US Naval Academy 1971, master's degrees in mechanical engineering and ocean engineerin, both from MIT, 1978; Commanding Officer Special Boat Unit TWENTY, Naval Amphibious Base, Little Creek, Va.; father, the late George R. Shepherd and mother, Barbara Shepherd, Bethesda, Md. Ellen L. Shulman, MD, April 27, 1953, Fayetteville, NC, bachelor's degree in geology, State University of New York at Buffalo, 1974 and doctor of medicine at Cornell University, 1978; Medical Officer, Medical Sciences Division, Johnson Space Center, Houston; Dr. and Melvin Shulman, Beechhurst, NY. Kathryn C. Thornton, PhD; Aug. 17, 1952, Montgomery, Ala; Charlottesville, Va.; Sidney Lanier High School, Montgomery, Ala, bachelor's degree in physics, Auburn, Univ, 1974, master's and doctorate, both in physics, Univ. of VA, 1977 and 1979; Physicist, U.S. Army Foreign Science & Technology Center, Charlottesville, Va.; William C. Cordell, Hope Hull, Ala. and the late Elsie Cordell. Charles L. Veach; Sept. 18, 1944, Chicago; Houston; Punahou School, Honolulu, HA, and bachelor's degree in engineering management, USAF Academy, 1966; aeospace engineer & pilot, aircraft operations division, Johnson Space Center, Houston,; Mr. and Mrs. Marshall E. Veach, Hololulu, HA. James D. Wetherbee, Lt. U.S. Navy; Nov. 27, 1952, Flushing, NY; Lemoore, CA; Holy Familer Diocesan High School, South Hungtington, NY and bachelor's degree in aerospace engineering, University of Notre Dame, 1974; test pilot, Naval Air Station, Lemoore, CA; Mr. and Mrs. Dana A. Wetherbee, Huntington Station, NY. ------------------------------ Date: Saturday, 4 August 1984 07:30:29 EDT From: Howard.Gayle@cmu-cs-g.arpa To: Space@mit-mc.arpa Subject: Relative costs of Geostar and Navstar Message-ID: <1984.8.4.11.2.32.Howard.Gayle@cmu-cs-g.arpa> I don't understand why Geostar users will, at least in principle, pay so much less than Navstar users. (Note that I am talking here about direct costs to the user, like hardware and user fees. I exclude indirect costs like the taxes that pay for the Navstar satellites.) A Geostar transceiver consists of an antenna, a receiver, a processor, a display, and a transmitter. A Navstar receiver consists of the same functional units, but without the transmitter section and its relatively expensive, high peak power components. A Navstar receiver contains a much more complex processor, but this is just silicon, so once mass production starts, i.e., once the custom VLSI design is done, this should be negligible. Geostar will charge a user fee, but DOD has announced that there will be no user fee for Navstar. A Navstar receiver will probably have a simpler antenna, since it will not need to handle transmitter power. A Geostar transceiver will probably need an FCC radio station license. Present military Navstar prototype receivers are, of course, very expensive, but Aviation Week is already talking about pocket size receivers. I expect the Japanese to produce a pocket size Navstar receiver for well under $1000 (1984 dollars). I would like to read technical replies to this post, but please no flames about DOD stupidity, Free Enterprise, etc. ------------------------------ Date: 4 Aug 1984 16:21-PDT From: dietz%USC-CSE@ECLA To: space@MIT-MC.ARPA, arms-d@MIT-MC.ARPA, poli-sci@RUTGERS.ARPA Subject: Goodbye all I'm leaving the network, (sob) so goodbye, everyone. Paul Dietz dietz%usc-cse@usc-ecl ------------------------------ Date: 4 Aug 1984 23:57:04EPDT From: glenn at ll-vlsi To: SPACE@MIT-MC Subject: Ariane 3 launch successful The Arianespace/European Space Agency successfully lauched the first Ariane 3 rocket today (Aug 4) at about 10:30 am after a 90 minute hold due to minor problems according to the British Broadcasting Corp. This launch placed two satellites in orbit, the Eutelsat ECS-2 and the French Telecoom 1, both commsats. Total lauch weight to geosync orbit of the Ariane 3 is about 2500 kilos. This makes the Ariane very competative with the shuttle for geosync orbits at this time. This is the eighth Ariane launch. Inspite of the comment made by someone a few weeks ago in this net the Ariane has never "blown up on the pad". It has had 2 failures, one in the booster quite late in the first stage flight, and once in the third stage. Actually the failures of the upper stages on the shuttle, and the success of today's launch has raised the possibility that the shuttle may have higher insurance rates placed on launches from it compared to the Ariane. Not good for the shuttle as this gives more evidence for those that say the single launch bosters are better. Glenn Chapman ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 06-Aug-84 0404 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #268 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 268 Today's Topics: Time to Say Goodbye Re: Space tether Re: Apollo 2-6 Re: How does Geostar work? Justifying the space program Re: Space tether ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 4 Aug 84 6:13:13-PDT (Sat) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: ihnp4!mhuxl!ulysses!allegra!alice!alb @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: Time to Say Goodbye I'll be going away to college at the end of August, so it's time to say farewell (for now anyway) to the net. I'm not just dropping everything, though. Gene Spafford, ihnp4!gatech!spaf, has agreed to take up tl%caretaking of the List of Active Newsgroups. He will make the 15 August posting. Unfortunately, I'll not be able to keep up my reports to net.columbia. Don't let it die, though, for I'll be back during breaks and summers, and maybe I'll even get to squeeze in an article or two while away. It's be fun. Thanx for everything to everyone. Adam ------------------------------ Date: 4 Aug 84 7:08:45-PDT (Sat) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: ihnp4!ihuxb!alle @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: Re: Space tether > Volume 4, Issue 262 addresses "real" attempts to hang a skyhook from > a satellite. This was the central theme of a science-fiction story > I read a year or two ago, which I cannot now find. I cannot, of course > (such is the nature of the universe), remember author or title. > Anyone else remember it? > The chief engineering problem of the story was the strength of the > cable. They used some newfangled wonder fibre. Are people now really > serious about this? The Novel was "The Fountains of Paradise" by Arthur C. Clarke. --> Allen <-- ihnp4!ihuxb!alle ------------------------------ Date: 4 Aug 84 15:15:40-PDT (Sat) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: ihnp4!mgnetp!burl!clyde!watmath!utzoo!henry @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: Re: Apollo 2-6 > What happened to Apollo missions 2-6? Were they so upset after the > disaster of Apollo 1 that they canceled those missions? The same thing that happened to Gemini 1 and 2: they were unmanned tests. In fact, there may have been some retroactive renumbering (bletch), because making the Grissom/White/Chaffee mission "Apollo 1" was a memorial afterthought, not the original intent. In the normal course of events, G/W/C would have been Apollo 7 or thereabouts. -- Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology {allegra,ihnp4,linus,decvax}!utzoo!henry ------------------------------ Date: 4 Aug 84 15:34:16-PDT (Sat) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: ihnp4!mgnetp!burl!clyde!watmath!utzoo!henry @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: Re: How does Geostar work? > Can someone on the net tell us how the Geostar navigation system works? > The accuracies claimed for it are much higher than those for the military > Navstar system (less than 1 meter positioning accuracy versus 30 meters). > However, the Geostar ground units are simpler (they do not need an accurate > time base) and they use fewer satellites (four versus eighteen). How can > they do so much better with so much less? Technical answers only please, > not flames about the inferiority of anything done by the government. The two systems are almost duals of each other, in the mathematical sense of "precise opposites". Navstar works by having the user terminal ("ground unit") time the signals from several different satellites, whose positions are known accurately. Geostar works by having the satellites and the central ground computer facility time the signals from the user terminal. The Geostar system puts most of the smarts, and most of the cost, in the satellites and the central ground computers. Navstar has dumb satellites and no central ground facility, and consequently needs smart user terminals with accurate clocks. Geostar's user terminals are basically just digital radios for talking to the satellites and sending them pulses to be timed. The greater accuracy of Geostar is mostly a question of being able to invest more in accuracy when the investment is centralized, I believe. They may get some benefit from timing one signal at a time instead of having to broadcast continuous position-reference signals. And it probably helps that they use Clarke-orbit ("geostationary") satellites, whose positions do not change rapidly. Geostar would probably need a few more satellites for truly global coverage; the four-satellite requirement is basically for coverage of the Americas, I think. And I suspect that Geostar's accuracy is poor near the poles, where the satellites are nearly on (or actually below!) the horizon. Navstar, being a military system, has to think about these things, hence large numbers of satellites in non-Clarke orbits. -- Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology {allegra,ihnp4,linus,decvax}!utzoo!henry ------------------------------ Date: 5 Aug 84 13:28:41-PDT (Sun) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: hplabs!hao!ames!eugene @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: Justifying the space program [] Justifying the space program using 'spinoffs' does not buy it in Congress. First, many so called spinoffs, electronic minaturization (sp) a good example, have been argued down because that would have happened anyway (NASA didn't really have much to do with it) or that has been argued that "free enterprise" did the work. Second, spinoffs are highly unpredictable, extreme case, justifying chemical warfare research because of possible spinoffs to cancer research [This work has been done at U of U]. So, I stopped arguing this track, but I do acknowledge benefits (Tang). No, Joe Blow on the street needs to see that we are living in the space age. For example, the theory of relatively is just seeing "practical" use: we are starting to think about wire lengths in electronics, perhaps the consumer of the future might, too. The space age is now involved with many aspects of day to day life. All you need to do to see how vital some of this is: 1) turn off all weather satellites, especially during storm seasons. Don't forget to tell people that they could be used. 2) turn off all communication and TV satellites 3) turn off numerous other navigation and satellites This might be akin to turning off all traffic lights, but a bit more removed. Perhaps, we should not subsidize space so much. We are heavily involved in the space age: even arms control to an extend. Direct research such as plantary exploration gives us a comparison of our planet to others, and directly enlarges our understanding. This reason is subtle, and almost borders on spinoffs, but it is not a spinoff. Lastly, the most difficult to fathom reason, we must explore space, because that is what separates us from the rest of the cosmic 'slime' on spaceship earth. [Sagan would have used more elioquent words: 'star stuff'] Our desire for exploration is what separates us from the more primitive tribes (my favorite are the Sherpas, as I am a climber). Modern man got where he is because of his sense of time and the future (planning ahead). Many other cultures (few left) are unable or unwilling to utilize time. Modern man has to learn to balance present needs with future desires. If we let the present dominate our thinking [it is important], then we fall back down the evolutionary ladder. I think your (my descendents came East, same difference) Westward migration and subsequent Alaska and imperialist (to a degree) fortes into other nations are a reflection of this latter. Space might give us an opportunity to continue without killing ourselves. Let's hope we can continue without: 1) destroying the Earth (a spacecraft) and ourselves 2) ruining other worlds in the process I have heard social commentators mention '"Japanese" island mentality' as a positive social force. Perhaps, we need a bit of "Earth island mentality," too. --eugene miya NASA Ames Research Center {hplabs,dual,menlo70,hao}!ames!aurora!eugene emiya@ames-vmsb.ARPA p.s. I wish I could be as eloquent as Carl. ------------------------------ Date: 4 Aug 84 18:12:29-PDT (Sat) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: ihnp4!houxm!houxz!vax135!cornell!tesla!mac @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: Re: Space tether The book refered to as including a space tether was based in Sri-Lanka; Does that give you a hint? Arthur C. Clarke.... Michael McNamara @ .!cornell!tesla!mac ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 07-Aug-84 0403 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #269 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 269 Today's Topics: Re: Apollo 2-6 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 6 Aug 84 21:57:13-EDT (Mon) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: ihnp4!astrovax!nels @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: Re: Apollo 2-6 According to "Rockets, Missiles and Men in Space" by Willy Ley, there were three unmanned flights with Apollo hardware before the fire, beginning in February 1966. At the time they were designated, in order of launching, AS-201, AS-203 and AS-202. During all three, Apollo command and service modules (CSMs) were launched by a Saturn IB. Two of the flights were orbital shots; the other was suborbital. The next flight was to have been the ill-fated Apollo 1 (AS-204). After the fire, AS-201, 203 and 202 became Apollos 1, 3 and 2, respectively. In October 1967 the first Saturn V sent a CSM into a highly elliptical orbit and then rammed it back to earth at lunar return speed. This flight was called Apollo 4 (AS-501). Apollo 5 was an unmanned test of the lunar module (no CSM) in earth orbit using a Saturn IB and Apollo 6 (AS-502) was another Saturn V shot like Apollo 4. Nels Anderson Princeton Astrophysics ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 08-Aug-84 0404 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #270 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 270 Today's Topics: Very cheap photovoltaic cells ---------------------------------------------------------------------- id AA00244; Tue, 7 Aug 84 20:23:09 edt id AA13994; Tue, 7 Aug 84 20:23:06 edt Date: 7 Aug 1984 19:56-EDT From: cu-arpa.dietz@Cornell.ARPA Subject: Very cheap photovoltaic cells To: space@mit-mc Message-Id: <84/08/07 1956.630@Cornell> The August issue of Spectrum has a short note about a newly invented process for converting light to electricity. The process uses an array of tiny dipoles, 0.18 microns long (~ 1/2 wavelength of light) by 0.01 microns wide. Incoming light waves cause resonating currents in the dipoles. These currents get rectified by diodes to yield DC. The inventor claims 75-80% efficiency at 1/10 the cost of semiconductor junction solar cells. According to the article, no one had previously been able to get the dipoles thin enough. X ray techniques have apparently made it possible (using synchrotron radiation?). Space enthusiasts will recognize this idea as a rectenna scaled down by four or five orders of magnitude. I don't know how the diodes are made, but it seems clear you don't need large crystals of silicon to make this work: thin films or polycrystaline Si should work just fine. If these cells are as cheap as the inventor claims (40x more cost effective than conventional cells) we could see almost all daytime electricity coming from them. This will provide a strong incentive to develop cheap energy storage (which seems unlikely), to develop very long transmission lines (which seems impractical, even if superconducting), or to make the cells work 24 hours a day, either by placing them in orbit or by putting mirrors in orbit to reflect light to ground based cells. The high efficiency also makes laser power transmission attractive, allowing very small receiving antennas -- but don't fly into the beam! ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 09-Aug-84 0406 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #271 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 271 Today's Topics: Light Antennae more light antennae Re: Space tether Successful private space venture Re: Relative costs of Geostar and Navstar Re: Why did the US let Skylab die? New Soviet Space Walk Re: Relative costs of Geostar and Navstar Tethered Generators The Shuttle News Will Continue! Re: Apollo 2-6 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 7 Aug 84 18:37:10 cdt From: Duncan A. Buell To: Space-Enthusiasts%mit-mc.arpa@csnet-relay.csnet The space program--how do we justify it to Congress? Beats the hell out of me, and I have been close to the space program since my father learned rocketry in Huntsville in 1951. How does Congress justify spending money on the arts? on public TV? How did the Duke of Brunswick justify subsi- dizing Gauss? Apart from the obvious (justified or unjustified) desires of the military for space ability, the people who want to explore space do it, I suppose, because it's there, because it would be a denial of some of our more fundamental lusts to have the technology to "look beyond the ranges" and not do so. And Congress pays for it because they can be sucked in by the same urges. That, I think, is all there is to it. That certainly does not suggest practical approaches to going after continued funding. Should the turkeys outnumber the visionaries in Congress, the space program can expect lean years--and has seen some of them. On the other hand, maybe this does suggest funding approaches. Don't try to show that it's centsible to go into space. Just sell the dream. Rational arguments are always in danger of being refuted by better rational argu- ments. A good irrational hunger is a much better bet. No flames in response to this, please. I really don't know any sure-fire justifications for going into space that aren't military. I do know that we'd be less as a species if we didn't succumb to some of the urges we have, like pointing up and wanting to go there. ------------------------------ Date: 8 Aug 1984 1347-PDT From: Richard M. King Subject: Light Antennae To: space@MIT-MC I don't see why storage should be considered impractical, since it is already being done on a large scale. We could, for example, only use hydro at night or on cloudy days, doubling or more the amount you get from a given river. (Less power is used at night than during the day.) The fact that an electric car would usually never need to be recharged (A roof+hood area of 3-4 square meters gives about 2KW at noon; if the car has a duty cycle <10%, and most do, it would never taste an electric outlet!) might make them a winner finally. Solar shingles would be a real possibility. (Note that converting sunlight to electricity and using resistance heat is more efficient than most solar collectors, if you believe the 75-80% figure. Also, the efficiency of a thermal collector falls proportionally to the insolation (virtually nil on a cloudy day), and this wouldn't. An article in Technology Review of about 1 1/2 years ago gave about 3-4 cents/KWH as the cost of the home storage unit (Flywheel, Kevlar, ball bearings, permanent magnet motor/generator, evacuated) and approx 10 cents/ KWH for the collectors. (This is from memory; correct me if I'm wrong.) With the cells so cheap and efficient we can afford to provide enough to power our load on cloudy days! To summarize, the major uses of energy can adapt well to this source: ground transport electric cars with receiver roof domestic thermal (600 degree cast iron stores 20 KBTU/cu. ft; you need a 4 foot cube to heat a house for 48 hours) electrical (flywheels, batteries, whatever!) commercial easier than domestic; less happens at night heavy industry store the product! (Seriously, we would need twice as much (say) aluminum smelting capacity to meet America's need as we do now (assuming existing plants run at night - do they?) but the major cost of Aluminum is the electricity. These comments were jotted down very quickly - pardon any inaccuracies. ------------------------------ Date: 8 Aug 1984 1635-PDT From: Richard M. King Subject: more light antennae To: space@MIT-MC I forgot to point out in the last message that at least a third of our electric energy could be generated in this manner before the utility would have to "generate negative electricity" by other means (ie. shut down all of its plants and run storage). Also, electricity is already being stored on a large scale (pumped Hydro, etc.) and may soon be more so (BEST). Note that the power company has to buy your current at avoided cost, which is the most expensive price it pays for its power. ------------------------------ Date: 7 Aug 84 12:00:03-PDT (Tue) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: hplabs!sdcrdcf!sdcsvax!sdccs6!ix241 @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: Re: Space tether The chief 'engineering problem' was moving Ceylon south to the equator. John Testa UCSD Chem sdccs6!ix241 ------------------------------ Date: 7 Aug 84 8:42:54-PDT (Tue) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: hplabs!ames!eugene @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: Successful private space venture I see from the SJ Mercury news that the local Redwood City firm called Starstruck had their first successful 14 second launch of their rocket off San Diego. It was a missile placed in the water and then launched. Three prior failures had problems such as water leakage, and frozen values. --eugene miya NASA Ames Res. Ctr. ------------------------------ Date: 7 Aug 84 12:51:26-PDT (Tue) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: hplabs!ames!al @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: Re: Relative costs of Geostar and Navstar This isn't technical, but it's not a flame either. Navstar and Geostar are designed for very different missions. Navstar is worldwide, Geostar is North America. Also, much more fundimental, Navstar is designed to fight wars with. It is designed to survive hostile attack by intelligent, powerful enemies. This sort of thing costs a lot of money and has enormous impact on design. ------------------------------ Date: 7 Aug 84 12:47:24-PDT (Tue) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: hplabs!ames!al @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: Re: Why did the US let Skylab die? >One thing I've never understood is why the US never >tried to save Skylab. From what I've read, NASA had >planned to fly one of the early shuttle missions to Skylab >to attach a new engine to it to boost it to a higher orbit >in order to save it. This plan was based on the assumption >by NASA that the shuttle was going to be ready in about >1978, which it obviously wasn't. However, my question is: >if NASA knew that it couldn't get to Skylab with the shuttle >in time, why didn't they launch an unmanned vehicle to >rendezvous with Skylab to boost it into a higher orbit? > >Would there be technical difficulties with such a plan, >or did NASA not do it so they could obtain a *new* space >station; instead of having to refurbish Skylab? It seemed >to me to be such a waste to let such a huge station be >destroyed. It sure would have been nice to have to work >in concert with the shuttle, until the new space station >is launched in the 1990's. There would have been severe technical difficulaties. Not unsolvable, but expensive and time consuming. Building ANY space vehicle takes years, usually five or more. Building something that does something new (unmanned rendezvous and reboost would be new for the U.S.) is that much harder. Combine that with tight NASA budgets of the time and it's fairly obvious why nothing was done. Also, a note, Skylab wasn't supposed to come down so soon. The problem was that the Sun was hotter than expected so the atmosphere expanded increasing drag. When Skylab was put up, NASA did three studies to determin drag up to the shuttle era. Two studies said little atmospheric expansion, one study turned out to be accurate. NASA managers did the logical thing at the time and believed the two studies. They just turned out to be wrong. At least that's the story I heard. ------------------------------ Date: 8 Aug 1984 23:53:57EPDT From: glenn at ll-vlsi To: SPACE@MIT-MC Subject: New Soviet Space Walk Two of the Soviet Salyut cosmonauts, Vladimir Solovyov and Leonid Kizin, have just today (Aug 8) spent another five hours in a space walk. The purpose of this one was to do more work on the fuel lines of the station and to take in a piece of the solar panels for return to earth for studies. This is the sixth space walk for this pair this year, and gives them a total of 22 hours each in vacuum. The Russian reports went on to say this gave more indications of the usefulness of men in building large space structures. In recent days they have been talking of solar power sats. That Salyut crew has just passed the half year mark in space so who knows what the Soviets have planned for them in the rest of their flight. The Russians are having their best year in space ever this year, unfortunately the same cannot be said for this country. Glenn Chapman ------------------------------ Date: 7 Aug 84 22:52:47-PDT (Tue) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: ihnp4!houxm!houxz!vax135!cornell!dietz @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: Re: Relative costs of Geostar and Navstar A Navstar ground unit must receive signals from four navstar satellites simultaneously, so it must have 4 receivers (actually, two frequencies are transmitted by each satellite, so the unit must receive 8 signals). A Geostar ground unit need only have one receiver. Geostar ground unit must transmit a powerful microwave pulse, but the average power is very low (milliwatts), so microwave semiconductors can be used. There is some contention about the accuracy of the Geostar system. The Navstar system uses two different frequency signals from each satellite in order to compensate for the slowing of microwaves passing through the ionosphere (a frequency dependent effect). Geostar could do this also by having the ground unit transmit two reply pulses at different frequencies, but I don't know if O'Neill has put this feature in. The biggest gain for Geostar is the added functionality. Since signals are transmitted from ground units, they can be used for communication as well as position location. ------------------------------ Date: 7 Aug 84 13:25:40-PDT (Tue) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: ihnp4!ihuxt!ivy @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: Tethered Generators Loss of orbital energy (altitude) to stratospheric friction is a real problem. Using an orbiting tether as a generator winding, sweeping through a planet's magnetic field, and using that to replace the orbital energy lost to friction is an excellent idea. Now, having solved the problem of energy lost to friction, how shall we replace the orbital energy lost (converted) to electricity? How about a bicycle with a generator on the front wheel, and an electric motor on the back? Wiring them into each other won't make up for wind resistance... without adding a step-up transformer in between! ;-) D Iverson ------------------------------ Date: 7 Aug 84 12:27:37-PDT (Tue) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: ihnp4!mgnetp!burl!ulysses!allegra!alice!alb @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: The Shuttle News Will Continue! Roger Noe (ihlts!rjnoe) has more than graciously offered to summarize the shuttle news for me while I am away, so the summaries will continue even after my departure! A big THANK YOU to Roger, please!! ------------------------------ Date: 7 Aug 84 15:28:18-PDT (Tue) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: ihnp4!ihu1h!ajaym @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: Re: Apollo 2-6 I thought that Apollo 2-6 were unmanned test flights. Lots of changes went into design between the Gemini and Apollo series. Apollo 7 was the the first to be manned in the new design. I think! -- ------------------------- Jay Mitchell ihnp4!ihu1h!ajaym ------------------------- ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 10-Aug-84 0405 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #272 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 272 Today's Topics: Re: Apollo 2-6 Re: Relative costs of Geostar and Navstar very cheap solar cells SPACE Digest V4 #271 Why spacelab died. Re: Justifying space exploration to Congress ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 7 Aug 84 12:49:24-PDT (Tue) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: decvax!linus!utzoo!henry @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: Re: Apollo 2-6 I got curious enough about this to check my previous comments in the best available reference, "Chariots For Apollo", which is (roughly speaking) the official history of the Apollo spacecraft. Turns out the situation was more complex than it looked. The Grissom/White/Chaffee mission was indeed known as "Apollo 1", but not 100% officially. The astronauts had official approval for a shoulder patch marked "Apollo 1", and this designation also appeared in other places, but much of NASA continued to refer to the mission by its internal planning number, AS-204. Three earlier unmanned tests had been AS-201 through AS-203. Just how this would have all turned out in the absence of the fire, one can only speculate. What actually did happen was that the first flight after the fire, an unmanned test, was officially known throughout NASA as "Apollo 4". (It still had an AS-xxx number, but this was no longer the final name of the mission.) Further tests and manned missions went from there. There was an official decision *not* to retroactively rename the earlier tests, perhaps partly to avoid the problem of having to call AS-201 "Apollo 1", a name which many people thought should be reserved for the never-flown AS-204. So there never (officially) was an "Apollo 2" or "Apollo 3". [Bibliographic note: "Chariots for Apollo" is still available from the US Govt Printing Office, and is well worth having, as are "Moonport" and "Steps to Saturn", the corresponding books on Kennedy Space Center and the Saturn boosters. Not cheap, and not thin, but good.] -- Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology {allegra,ihnp4,linus,decvax}!utzoo!henry ------------------------------ Date: 7 Aug 84 13:00:17-PDT (Tue) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: decvax!linus!utzoo!henry @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: Re: Relative costs of Geostar and Navstar > I don't understand why Geostar users will, at least in principle, > pay so much less than Navstar users. (Note that I am talking > here about direct costs to the user, like hardware and user fees. > I exclude indirect costs like the taxes that pay for the Navstar > satellites.) A Geostar transceiver > consists of an antenna, a receiver, a processor, a display, and a > transmitter. A Navstar receiver consists of the same functional units, > but without the transmitter section and its relatively expensive, > high peak power components. A Navstar receiver contains a > much more complex processor, but this is just silicon, so once > mass production starts, i.e., once the custom VLSI design is > done, this should be negligible. Geostar will charge a user fee, > but DOD has announced that there will be no user fee for Navstar. > A Navstar receiver will probably have a simpler antenna, since it > will not need to handle transmitter power. A Geostar transceiver > will probably need an FCC radio station license. > Present military Navstar prototype receivers are, of course, very > expensive, but Aviation Week is already talking about pocket > size receivers. I expect the Japanese to produce a pocket size > Navstar receiver for well under $1000 (1984 dollars). As I said in a previous article, which may not have got to you yet, the answer is simple. A Geostar transceiver is basically just a digital radio. A Navstar receiver needs a complex receiver (it has to decode time signals very accurately, something Geostar does in the centralized part of the system), probably a very accurate clock, and quite a bit of computing power. This is not free, and not cheap, despite the overblown claims of Navstar advocates. The only reason DoD isn't going to charge a user fee for Navstar is that they don't see any way to collect one, since the Navstar signals are broadcast transmissions that anyone can pick up. Geostar is in a position to charge a fee, since getting your position from it needs cooperation from the central computer. A Geostar transceiver shouldn't need an FCC licence any more than a cellular-mobile telephone needs one. Both are radio transceivers, but both get handled in different ways from normal transmitters. Please note that one reason why Geostar is much more accurate than Navstar is that the high-accuracy version of the Navstar signals can be received only if you have the right decryption key, which will be available only to the US military. Civilian Navstar users get only the low-accuracy version. -- Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology {allegra,ihnp4,linus,decvax}!utzoo!henry ------------------------------ Date: 9 Aug 1984 14:17:00-EDT From: Hank.Walker at CMU-CS-UNH Subject: very cheap solar cells The talk about the cells costing a tenth what silicon solar cells do must be bunk. Current module costs are maybe $5/W, so he is talking $0.50/W, or $5/wafer. The cost of silicon cells is primarily the crystalline silicon. The cost of the antenna cells is the complex lithographic step. Rectifiers will probably have to be integrated onto the same wafer, so an alignment problem is created, and it looks a lot like you're making an integrated circuit. Note that according to the article, a prototype won't be available until next year, so the process must be rather difficult. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 9 Aug 1984 18:16 EDT Message-ID: From: MINSKY%MIT-OZ@MIT-MC.ARPA To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC Subject: SPACE Digest V4 #271 Why spacelab died. At the time it became clear that spacelab would fall in less than two years, I wandered around various NASA centers to see what could be done. Not only was the shuttle late but the remote (telepresence) maneuvering vehicle project was essentially unfunded. But I also got an impression of general unenthusiasm for an emergency rescue effort. True, the thing was worth more than a billion in replacement costs. But I got the feeling in several places that people would rather make a new better one than work on refitting and re-engineering the old one. No one would actually admit to this, but that's the impression I got. ------------------------------ Date: 9-Aug-84 14:30 PDT From: Kirk Kelley Subject: Re: Justifying space exploration to Congress To: space@MIT-MC Message-ID: <[OFFICE-2.ARPA]TYM-KIRK-577JH> What if a very hard study showed that greater relative funding of space exploration over other activities increased our viability, at least as a nation. Such a study may be doable even by just the collaboration of those on this list. If it turned out that a significant increase in viability would result, would it have any impact on congress? -- kirk ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 11-Aug-84 0405 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #273 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 273 Today's Topics: Re: Successful private space venture Re: Tethered Generators GPS and GEOSTAR Re: Tethered Generators Shuttle Liftoff Scheduled ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 8 Aug 84 9:32:47-PDT (Wed) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: hplabs!sdcrdcf!lwall @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: Re: Successful private space venture In article eugene@ames.UUCP (Eugene Miya) writes: >I see from the SJ Mercury news that the local Redwood City firm >called Starstruck had their first successful 14 second launch of >their rocket off San Diego. It was a missile placed in the water >and then launched. Three prior failures had problems such as water >leakage, and frozen values. I should think frozen values would be more of a problem to NASA than Starstruck. Larry Wall {allegra,burdvax,cbosgd,hplabs,ihnp4,sdcsvax}!sdcrdcf!lwall ------------------------------ Date: 8 Aug 84 8:58:43-PDT (Wed) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: hplabs!tektronix!uw-beaver!ssc-vax!eder @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: Re: Tethered Generators [7 August 1984] The way you make up frictional drag losses in LEO with a conductive tether is to use a solar array to force current up the tether. By reversing the 'generator effect', you now have a motor. The system now gains orbital energy at the expense of electricity. Force on a current-carrying wire in a magnetic field is IL x B where I=current in Amperes, L=length of wire(meters),x= cross product (math function that tells which way force is directed), and B is magnetic field in Teslas. In order to have a one way current, you have to collect electrons at one end (a large sheet of aluminum), and get rid of them at the other (an electron gun). Losses in the system are parasitic power to run the electron gun (10-20%), and I*I*R resistance losses in the wire. Although this propulsion system only works well in the ionosphere, it gets lots better thrust per watt than ion propulsion, and consumes no fuel to boot. It can also be scaled arbitrarily small, i.e. 1 Ampere, 100 meter wire, television type electron gun, = 1/300 newton. Dani Eder / Boeing Aerospace Company / ssc-vax!eder ------------------------------ Date: 10 Aug 1984 09:36:55-EDT From: Kim.Constantikes at CMU-RI-SENSOR Subject: GPS and GEOSTAR The hardware requirements for a GPS reciever depend much upon the desired precision and user code access. It's true that two frequencies are avialable, but need not both be used. >From "Update on Civil GPS", T.A. Stansell,Jr. ( MAGNAVOX ): SIGNALS ____________________________________________________________ | L1 = 1575 Mhz | C/A code @ 1.023 Mhz | P code @ 10.23 Mhz| ____________________________________________________________ | L2 = 1227 Mhz | | P code @ 10.23 Mhz| ____________________________________________________________ ie, two carriers, each carrier with two subcarriers, each subcarrier with a different user access security. Figures for precision and accuracy change depending on a number of factors, not the least of which is the equipment manufacturer. The following numbers are MAGNAVOX's, I can't vouch for the veracity: 1) Classified, Multichannel, Two Freq, P code => ~10 meter RMS ( 3d ) 2) Classified, Single channel, One Freq, C/A code => ~20 meter RMS ( 3d ) 3) Unclassified, Civilian Reciever => ~50 meters The article is not clear about what constitutes " Uclassified Cvilian " access. The system has been designed so that any user ( world wide ) can recieve signals from 4 satellites at any time ( when fully implemented ). This does not imply that 4 satellites are needed for a 3d fix, of course. Three satellites will suffice, but at a reduced precision ( I have no idea what the reduction is ). Moving to opinions ( perhaps a bit stronger than that ): The aviation community that I have contact with generally expresses great concern over a ATC system that depends upon the reliability of one ( or two ) ground stations ( GEOSTAR ) . The entire ATC system can very easily be put out of commission, deliberately or by accident. GPS is substantially less vunerable to system wide failures.In fact, the current argument over whether to implement the MLS landing system or to use GPS for approaches centers about the same idea.... localize possible failures so that a massive failure has limited effect. It looks like MLS will win on this point. There is a wealth of literature on the details of GPS, in it's different configurations and resulting precisions that range from ~10 cm for a 24 hour fix to the numbers above for the high bandwidth measurement. People willing to read can contact me for some pointers, altho I AM NOT AN AUTHORITY on the system. ------------------------------ Date: 10 Aug 84 12:29:07-PDT (Fri) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: menlo70!sri-unix!parallel!andrew (Andrew Knutsen) @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: Re: Tethered Generators If there was energy lost due to stratospheric friction, Id be more concerned with atmosperic heating than slowing down the day. I dont think it would take more than a few seconds of increased revolutional period to boil us all to vapor... What a pleasant thought eh? Such are the pitfalls of large scale projects. Andrew ------------------------------ Date: 8 Aug 84 20:14:23-PDT (Wed) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: ihnp4!houxm!mhuxl!ulysses!allegra!alice!alb @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: Shuttle Liftoff Scheduled NASA today scheduled the liftoff of the combined shuttle flight, setting launch for 0835 EDT on 29 August, and landing at EAFB on 4 September. ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 12-Aug-84 0404 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #274 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 274 Today's Topics: Solar cells using dipole antenna arrays several More of same Discovery on Pad Shuttle Watching Tips Discovery Misaligned on Pad ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 10 Aug 84 12:16:00-PDT (Fri) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: hplabs!tektronix!orca!shark!davekn @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: Solar cells using dipole antenna arrays A couple of articles concerning this subject have appeared in this group, thus my comments are sent here. The reference is a short (1/3 page) news article in the latest Spectrum describing a patent for a solar cell technology using an array of .18 micron long by .01 micron wide dipole antennas and rectifiers for converting light into DC electricity. Claimed efficiency is 75 to 80%. I believe this to be a hoax. First, even with the lithography dimensions mentioned in the article, the transit time of electrons across a diode junction is much more than the 1 femto-second or so needed to rectify light frequencies. Second, the intensity of average sunlight would produce about 30 microvolts across each dipole. This is much too small to overcome the forward drop of any diodes. If the sunlight is concentrated by 10,000 times (to 1000 watts per square centimeter), the voltage raises to 3 millivolts - still much too small. Since sunlight is not coherent, the voltage of several dipoles cannot be added to improve this situation. Third, said lithography is just becoming possible, and would not be economical for large arrays for at least another 10 years. David Knierim 8/10/84 ------------------------------ Date: 11 Aug 1984 16:20:37-EDT From: Dale.Amon at CMU-RI-FAS Subject: several The skyhook SF story was most likely the novel by Arthur C. Clarke. I don't have my libary handy in my office and I don't remember the title. Something of Paradise I think. I do seem to remember I survey of the real skyhook studies in the back of the novel. The only public technical info on the Geostar system that I know of was published in two different articles in the AOPA Pilot. Both were within the last 3 years. Anyone interested in the details should latch on to a pilot friend and copy these articles. I might add that the design has been improved considerably since then, as they have actually done their pilot test. What these improvements are, I have no idea. Friends at SSI get understandably tight lipped when it comes to details like that... The reason for the cheapness is that the system smarts are centralized. Military systems do not require the navigating object to respond and give away it's position. This technical complication makes the satellite more complex and makes the receiver enormously complex and ridiculously expensive. Geostar basically uses very simple time-coded signals to triangulate the location of an object. The actual calculations are done on large, (multiply redundant), central computers. The satellites are simple high power transmitters with big receivers antennas, and the aircraft carries a simple transponder/display device. The key to the cheapness of the transponder is spreading the market to include trucks, cars, boats, hikers, etc, so that mass production cuts the cost even more. I doubt that the basic unit is much more complex than an ELT. Billing is quite simple, because anybody can buy a list of all currently active 'N' numbers and the owner addresses on floppy diskettes. I'm not sure how they intend to bill earthworms. In one swell foop, this system makes the ELT (and all it's long history of false alarms) obsolete, undersells the military efforts to become a commercial sales outfit, annihilates large portions of the National Airspace Plan (NASP), brings blind landing/takeoff capabilities within the reach of the merely well-to-do and in general gets rid of loads and loads of very very expensive avionics required for IFR flight. Of course the FAA will probably try to ignore it for as long as possible, because even though the administrations have changed, Lynn J Helms tied the agencies destiny and reputation to the above mentioned budgetary disaster (NASP), and they are unlikely to admit it publicly until forced to do so. They will probably salve their wounded pride by keeping the requirement for VOR-DME technology, although hopefully it will lay the MLS controversy to bed. We'll just have to see what happens when AOPA gets through working them over... ------------------------------ Date: 11 Aug 1984 17:08:59-EDT From: Dale.Amon at CMU-RI-FAS Subject: More of same Item #1: The solar electric car may well be an idea whose time is coming. I can name two other recent MAJOR contributing breakthroughs: 1) Polyacetylene batteries 2) The new magnet materials The batteries should be available fairly soon; I think Allied Electronics is supposed to market them. They have about an order of magnitude imporvement over lead-acid in kw-hr/lb, and are at least as rechargeable. The new magnetic material is about double (?) the field strength of the current best available, and is not expected to be terribly expensive. It is expected to lead to improved starter motors. I suspect it may also improve good old electric motors for the wheels. I do wonder if anyone has a solution to the low end torque problem; maybe a flywheel? I do enjoy taking out a sportscar and laying rubber in the first three gears... We'll know it's really here to stay when an elcetric car beats an Offie at Indy. Item 2: The russians may finally be considering serious use of women astronauts, but I can't help feeling a nagging doubt when I look at the originally published NASA launch schedule for this year and notice that an american women was scheduled for a spacewalk in August, and Sally Ride was scheduled to go up again. Funny thing that the Russian's did both so shortly before those original dates... #Item 3 I wonder if it has crossed anyone else's mind that if the Russians are indeed going for a full year, then April of this year may just be one of the most significant dates in the history of the earth: The last day in history when human life was not present in space. ------------------------------ Date: 10 Aug 84 6:35:42-PDT (Fri) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: ihnp4!mgnetp!burl!ulysses!allegra!alice!alb @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: Discovery on Pad The Discovery was rolled back to the launch pad yesterday and bolted in place for its 29 August launch. ------------------------------ Date: 11 August 1984 2123-EDT From: Jim Crowley at CMU-CS-A To: Bboard.Maintainer@CMU-CS-A Subject: Shuttle Watching Tips Attention: space bboard By a fortunate coincidence I expect to be in the Cape Canaveral area on Aug 29. Does anyone out in Net-land have any suggestions as to the best way for a private citizen to view a shuttle launch? -Crowley@cmua ------------------------------ Date: 11 Aug 84 21:05:47-EDT (Sat) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: ihnp4!houxm!mhuxl!ulysses!allegra!alice!alb @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: Discovery Misaligned on Pad NASA today discovered that the mobile launch platform on which the Discovery sits was placed about three inces off center on the launch pad yesterday. The misalignment left the mobile platform well within its tolerance limits, but the huge tractor tansporter was rolled back to the pad today, and the mobile platform and shuttle along with it were realigned. ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 13-Aug-84 0404 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #275 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 275 Today's Topics: A message on behalf of Ben Bova and NSI. re: # of satellites Re: Light Antennae ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Sender: SAI-relay@MIT-MULTICS.ARPA Date: Sun, 12 Aug 84 22:15 EDT From: Bernoff.SoftArts@MIT-MULTICS.ARPA Subject: A message on behalf of Ben Bova and NSI. To: space@MIT-MC.ARPA Message-ID: <840813021518.041185@MIT-MULTICS.ARPA> *from: BERNOFF (Joshua D. Bernoff) Local: space@mit-mc, cc:BERNOFF:sent.po Original-Date: 12 AUG 1984 20:04:52 I am a friend of Mr. Bova's and I have been sending him excerpts from the material on this net that I thought would be of interest to him. He is very active in the space movement (please see his book "The High Road", subtitled ". . . to survive on earth, we must expand into space," a cogently argued treatise written in such a way that even politicians can understand it). Mr. Bova is also President the National Space Institue, a worthwhile organization that has been asked to testify before congress more than any other space public interest organization. (NSI was founded by Wernher von Braun.) This message asks you to join NSI. As its prime purposes, NSI keeps its members up-to-date on space exploration activities and represents the interests of people like us in Congress. As the NRA has demonstrated, organizations of this type have clout, and are a force to be reckoned with. NSI is one way the people on this list could make themselves known and powerful AS A GROUP. The people reading this are, from my observation, highly intelligent, enthusiastic, and motivated. They are also highly individualistic and diverse, unlikely to join groups, clubs, or other granfaloons. Individually, this is a positive thing, but it means we're less likely to be listened and our interests are not well represented. NSI provides a way to channel some of our efforts in ways that can do the most good. Dammit, what happens in U.S. space efforts is probably the most important part of many of our futures, and I see this as an effective way to actually affect those futures for the better. At the risk of sounding like a late night UHF TV commercial, call: (202) 484-1111 or write: National Space Institue West Wing Suite #203 600 Maryland Avenue, S.W. Washington, DC 20024 to get more information. Feel free to mention Ben Bova's name. If we all flame together, maybe we'll light a fire under somebody! Thanks, Josh ------------------------------ Date: 9 Aug 84 15:51:19-PDT (Thu) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: hplabs!hao!noao!terak!sohail @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: re: # of satellites According to Desmond King-Hele's book "Observing Earth Satellites", there are roughly 5000 (five thousand) significant man-made objects in earth orbit. Watching these objects cross the sky every moonless night an hour after sunset is one of my favorite pastimes. The Ruskies were kind enough to send up a booster 6-8 meters in length , with every 'Cosmos' satellite. These boosters, painted white, usually go into orbit with the payload for 2 weeks to 20 years. In contrast, most of the United States launches were very tidy about putting thier booster trash in ballistic arcs or very shortlived orbits. (Maybe someone from NASA could enlighten us on the validity of my last sentence) The pretty white, tumbling, spent boosters make much better backyard targets then the small black silicon covered functional devices that are gyro-stabilized. I remain Cliff Cordes ...hao!noao!terak!cliff ------------------------------ Date: 10 Aug 84 14:52:30-PDT (Fri) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: ihnp4!mgnetp!burl!clyde!watmath!utzoo!henry @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: Re: Light Antennae > I don't see why storage should be considered impractical, since it > is already being done on a large scale. Not on anywhere near a large enough scale, and it's very difficult and expensive. We still have no really good and efficient way of storing electricity. > We could, for example, only use hydro at night or on cloudy days, > doubling or more the amount you get from a given river. (Less power is > used at night than during the day.) Hydro power (and its relative, pumped storage) is about the only bright spot in energy storage. But both are relatively expensive and, more important, applicable only in certain places. > The fact that an electric car would > usually never need to be recharged (A roof+hood area of 3-4 square meters > gives about 2KW at noon; if the car has a duty cycle <10%, and most do, it > would never taste an electric outlet!) might make them a winner finally. The problem with electric cars is not recharging, but battery capacity. The light-antenna scheme wouldn't do anything about this; what's needed is better battery technology, and it's being very slow in coming. > An article in Technology Review of about 1 1/2 years ago gave about > 3-4 cents/KWH as the cost of the home storage unit (Flywheel, Kevlar, ball > bearings, permanent magnet motor/generator, evacuated) and approx 10 cents/ > KWH for the collectors. (This is from memory; correct me if I'm wrong.) I can't comment on whether the numbers are right; the problem is that nobody has ever (to my knowledge) actually built such a thing. This is all speculation, not production equipment. > ground transport electric cars with receiver roof Only given much better batteries. > domestic thermal (600 degree cast iron stores 20 KBTU/cu. ft; > you need a 4 foot cube to heat a house for > 48 hours) Plus insulation, plus heat-exchange arrangements... Not trivial, and again this is not production hardware yet. > electrical (flywheels, batteries, whatever!) "Whatever" is definitely the word for it. Lots of ideas, but limited choice when one comes to viable, proven hardware. Despite years of effort, too. > commercial easier than domestic; less happens at night Don't forget that commercial buildings, and for that matter apartment buildings, have much less surface area for the amount of power they use than ordinary houses. This may be troublesome. > heavy industry store the product! (Seriously, we would need twice > as much (say) aluminum smelting capacity to > meet America's need as we do now (assuming > existing plants run at night - do they?) > but the major cost of Aluminum is the > electricity. I'm not sure... but I strongly suspect that a fair bit of the really heavy industry is running 24 hours/day already, to get maximum production out of very expensive capital investments. The major incremental cost of aluminum definitely is the power, but don't forget capital costs. I have no idea how they compare in the aluminum industry, but I know they are very important in some industries. I'm not trying to be a wet blanket -- the light-antenna notion will be a big thing, if it's practical -- but don't underestimate the problems involved in energy storage. At present the technology really isn't up to application on a national scale. Don't forget, also, that the energy storage system and/or the non-solar backup power sources *have* to be configured for the worst case, not the average case. Clouds may not hurt light antennas as badly as they hurt more ordinary solar power, but they'll still cut the output a lot, and at the worst possible time too (i.e. very cold weather). -- Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology {allegra,ihnp4,linus,decvax}!utzoo!henry ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 15-Aug-84 0405 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #276 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 276 Today's Topics: Re: Apollo 2-6 The Government in Space Keeping space clean Why Space? -- Your Answers Re: Tethered Generators Mondale 24 hr industry Re: More of same (electric motors and low end torque) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 11 Aug 84 17:08:19-PDT (Sat) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: ihnp4!mgnetp!burl!clyde!watmath!utzoo!henry @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: Re: Apollo 2-6 People have asked how to get "Chariots for Apollo" and the other books I mentioned, and it seems to be of sufficiently wide interest to post it. "C. for A." is a detailed history of the Apollo spacecraft; the others cover the Saturn boosters and the KSC launch facilities. These are very thorough and very detailed; the thinnest of them is over 500 pages. They are full of fascinating tidbits (like the vacuum-chamber rehearsal of the Apollo 11 lunar-surface procedures that was aborted when Armstrong reported, "Houston, this is Apollo 11. We can't get the hatch open."). Highly recommended. The books are softcover only, but cost much less than I remembered. I ordered a bunch of other things at the same time, and must have gotten the prices confused. They are NASA publications, orderable from: Superintendent of Documents U.S. Government Printing Office Washington, DC 20402 The three books in question, with USGPO stock numbers and prices (as of about a year ago) are: Chariots for Apollo: A History of Manned Lunar Spacecraft. S/N 033-000-00768-0 $12.00 Moonport: A History of Apollo Launch Facilities and Operations. S/N 033-000-00740-0 $13.00 Stages to Saturn: A Technological History of the Apollo/Saturn Launch Vehicles. S/N 033-000-00794-0 $12.00 Checks and money orders should be payable to "Superintendent of Documents". They take Visa and M/C. Foreign customers: no checks, add 25% for mailing. Allow 4 weeks. Phone orders at (202)783-3238, 8-4 Eastern Time. You might want to ask for some of their Subject Bibliographies, which are lists of publications on specific topics. The one I ordered from is SB-297, "Space, Rockets, and Satellites". I'm not sure these are free, but I don't know how much they'd cost; I didn't get my copy of SB-297 by mail. -- Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology {allegra,ihnp4,linus,decvax}!utzoo!henry ------------------------------ Date: 14 Aug 84 02:28:56 EDT From: JoSH Subject: The Government in Space To: space@MIT-MC.ARPA, poli-sci@RUTGERS.ARPA From: Bernoff.SoftArts@MIT-MULTICS.ARPA Subject: A message on behalf of Ben Bova and NSI. *from: BERNOFF (Joshua D. Bernoff) ... Mr. Bova is also President the National Space Institue, a worthwhile organization that has been asked to testify before congress more than any other space public interest organization. (NSI was founded by Wernher von Braun.) ... This message asks you to join NSI. As its prime purposes, NSI keeps its members up-to-date on space exploration activities and represents the interests of people like us in Congress. As the NRA has demonstrated, organizations of this type have clout, and are a force to be reckoned with. NSI is one way the people on this list could make themselves known and powerful AS A GROUP. ... Dammit, what happens in U.S. space efforts is probably the most important part of many of our futures. Thanks, Josh The NRA hasn't done so hot. What other rights in the Bill of Rights are so universally spit upon as the Second Amendment? But trivialities aside, I'd like to register a dissenting opinion to some of the implications above. Essentially, the future of mankind in space depends on breaking the government stranglehold on space activity. Those working to involve the government more heavily in space are working to have an Amtrak, a Post Office, or a Dept. of Education in control of what would otherwise been the greatest adventure of the human race. The only thing that the government SHOULD be doing in space is the only thing it ISN'T: aggressively protecting the rights of its citizens. Instead, paranoid of any miniscule power they, the citizens, attain ("formidable to tyrants only"), the government restricts, regulates, and wraps in red tape any private endeavor, but what is worse, creates and maintains an atmosphere of uncertainty about both its own efforts (NASA's highly subsidized offerings would be instantly hauled into court as predatory price cutting it it were a private company), and its restrictions on others'. I once asked Charles Sheffield what was wrong with the nuclear rocket (NERVA style); why wasn't anybody using them? Well, he replied, they were known to be feasible and would probably be considerably more economical than chemical ones, but were illegal, both by law and by treaty. Now, there's no law of nature that says that space exploration has to be cheap enough for any significant fraction of the people to be able to do it--but if there is a way, it is nuclear power or something better, not the "Cecil B. DeMille" method whereby the government accomplishes one grand thing in a lifetime using the efforts of millions of slaves. Governments are great at being Ozimandias, but make lousy truck drivers. Government-run enterprises, and those under close government control, show a moribund tenacity to old ways that would be the doom of any space expansion effort. --And that's assuming it's successful; that's assuming that people are so convinced we need space that they'll put up with the horribly high costs involved, the way they put up with the Post Office. My bet is that Nasa will continue to blow in the political wind, going in fits and starts, running hot and cold depending who's in favor, who's in power, whether 49 or 51 percent of congressmen woke up on the right side of the bed this morning. The corner used rocket lot next to the local spaceport--this image could be reality within a century. First we must have a political environment in which it is possible to have the corner used airplane lot next to the local airport. Instead it costs about $2000 just to get a pilot's *license*. If space is run by the government, you can just throw all those old dreams out the window. Although it's next to impossible, a political space supporter could hope to put together a coalition of interests similar to the "military-industrial complex". Although in the quarter-century since that phrase was coined, DoD has spent upwards of a trillion dollars, what has it *accomplished*? Space enthusiasts, like many others before them, have been suckered in by the "quick-buck" theory of government: Spend your time and money convincing the government to do what you want, and you'll get a "multiplier effect", being able to accomplish more than if you had applied your efforts directly to your end. It worked for the railroads from 1880 to the 1950's; for the airlines from the 1930's to 1980. It still works for the farmers as a sector, though most the small farmers it was supposed to help are bust, and agri-corporations get the payoffs. It has worked for defense contractors since the 30's in a big way. More recently this gold mine has been discovered by everybody from the aged to the zoologists. What all this has to do with space is that like any resource, competition soon brings its cost into line with its benefits. How are you doing in the political arena now? Tomorrow will bring more, not less, clamoring fools with some plausible theory about how the "public good" and their gain coincide. I hate to see otherwise intelligent, decent people throw away their integrity, and indeed their ultimate chance for success, for the seductive short-term promise of coercive gain. And I hate even more for them to ruin my own chances for independent success, in the process. --JoSH ------------------------------ Date: 13 Aug 84 9:32:53-PDT (Mon) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: ihnp4!mhuxl!ulysses!allegra!mouton!karn @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: Keeping space clean The comment was made that the US is more "tidy" in keeping spent boosters, etc, out of orbit than is the Soviet Union. This is correct. With all of the objects in orbit being tracked by NORAD, they want to minimize the number as much as possible. On a low orbit mission, the upper stage is maneuvered into an elliptical orbit with a low perigee after the payload is separated, so that the launcher (which has a very large area/mass ratio to start with) will decay within several years. For example, the Delta second stage on the Landsat-5/UoSAT-Oscar-11 launch was dropped into a 500 x 700 km orbit after the payloads were deposited in 700 km circular orbits. On geostationary launches, the initial elliptical transfer orbit generally has a very low perigee (e.g., 200 km for the Ariane). This serves the dual purpose of shortening the lifetime of the launcher upper stage and reducing the energy required to reach transfer orbit. Ariane 3rd stages have been reentering in about 3 years; I don't know about STS PAMs, but they will probably also reenter fairly quickly due to the low starting perigee of 300 km or so (the circular altitude of the shuttle). Phil ------------------------------ Date: 13 Aug 84 11:10:56-PDT (Mon) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: pur-ee!wd9get @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: Why Space? -- Your Answers Thanks for all the many replys to my query about arguments for why we should venture into space. Here are the replys I received so far. If any of these bring up another good point, or you have an alternitive point of view, please mail it to me. I'm always glad to hear new arguments. --Keith E. Brandt pur-ee!wd9get >From inuxc!fred Tue Jul 31 10:10:40 1984 My favorite argument runs like this: The Earth has finite resources. If as a race we restrict ourselved to only Earths resources we are forced to play a zero sum game, i.e. every time I win it someone else must be losing. This type of situation is a prime cause of much unrest in the world and in fact is a prime cause of wars. The move into space and the use of extratresstial resources breaks us out of the zero sum game. There is enough material and energy out there that if I win, it is not at the cost of someone else, they can win too. Joe Blow on the street is not going to understand this but he should at least understand that we are running out of fundamental resources on the planet and that space exploration is likely to help correct those shortages. Fred >From ucbvax!mcgeer@ucbchip.Berkeley.ARPA Tue Jul 31 20:56:00 1984 Here are two good reasons: (1) In direct benefits alone (weather forecasting, mineral discoveries, communications), the space program has more than paid for itself (all in, Mercury to the Shuttle, the cost of the program has been about $50 billion. Better weather prediction has been worth conservatively ten times that, just counting better crop yields, less damage from hurricanes, and so forth. Mining discoveries are worth easily $500 billion as well). When spinoff benefits - chips, doppler ultrasound, velcro, all manner of materials, and so forth - are counted, the program has paid off a hundredfold over our investment. (2) Is it merely our lot to trudge this earth between birth and the grave, wondering where our next meal is coming from, keeping our mind and our eyes firmly upon the mud that we tread? Or should we, in these niggling few years that a cruel nature allots us, strive, seek, find and never yield? The space program is man's answer to the ultimate challenge of the universe, and to our highest calling. It seems to me that $25 for each of us is not too large a price to pay to wander among the stars, instead of trudging in the muck. Rick. >From ihnp4!vax135!ukc!dgd Wed Aug 1 19:37:48 1984 Probably not an argument to convince your voters (or maybe it is!): You can afford it as the most economically powerful nation. Alas for us poor Brits who must hang onto other peoples coat tails! >From decvax!mcnc!unc-c!dya Thu Aug 2 02:17:45 1984 ' Well, I'd tell Joe Average that the CT scanner, NMR, advances in pharm- aceuticals, etc. were direct benefits of the intense research conducted during the space programme. That's why he is * AROUND * to contemplate having his medicare bills paid. As an example, pneumoencephalography was once a common diagnostic procedure that had a significant mortality and morbidity to it which is rarely, if ever performed when there is access to CT or NMR. The computational power required to reconstruct diagnostic CT quality images is a direct result of the problems with real time processing of space telemetry data. Communications satellites are of inestimable value. Literally BILLIONS (that's with a "B") of dollars have been saved with weather satellites, land usage mapping, pollution studies, etc. There can be no value placed on the good done by improved communications amongst the people of the world. In many countries (such as India) communications satellites are used not for beaming HBO to your local cable company, but rather for education to stamp out basic societal ills such as substandard living conditions and overpopulation. This, I might add, is often a gift from the U.S....we furnished India with ATS-6 after its mission life was over in the U.S. The satellite is still in use. The problems of constructing rocket motors, such as the dynamics of gas flow through nozzles (as a highly simple example), have led to basic theoretical breakthroughs in engineering that directly benefit the masses. Exhaust emission control in motor vehicles directly benefited from the tremendous progress in fluids and combustion science. Pollution from vehicles is about 1 % of that from pre-emissions engines (1966 for the real world, 1963 for California). Not to mention materials, advanced mechanical engineering techniques like finite element analysis, organic chemistry, lubrication, reliability engineering (No one would use a home computer with an MTBF of the Burroughs B5700 or Illiac-IV), semiconductors, etc. I have heard that the ROI on government investment in the aerospace programme returns 10 times as much money in collected corporate and personal taxes over a 10 year period. We'd still be watching round tube Zeniths and couldn't conceive of doing "this" without the space programme. Medicare, on the other hand, is a bad investment, being a rip-off. ..because individuals who do not exhibit healthy living are often the ones who need it most. I would support a limit on Medicare benefits to anyone with a disease which is attributable to cigarette smoking or chronic alcohol abuse. If the money from lost productivity due to environmentally produced self-inflicted illness were saved, we could have one heck of a space programme...but that's another story. -dya- >From ucbvax!THOMPSON@USC-ECLC.ARPA Thu Aug 2 03:58:25 1984 If i pay Joe Average's medicare bills, i will make his life a little better. If i spend the money on space, i make my children's lives better. No contest. -mark ps. If your friend Joe will pay my share of welfare, medicare and social security, i will pay his share of NASA's budget. ------- >From ucbvax!REM@MIT-MC.ARPA Thu Aug 2 03:58:50 1984 Eventually we must leave this whole solar system if we expect to survive at all. But even sooner we must expand beyond Earth to have good chance of surviving the next planetwide disaster such as massive bombardment with comets or nuclear war or really bad epidemic (possibly caused by germ warfare out of control). Given that fact, why wait until the last minute when we don't know ahead of time when that last minute may be? It may be tomorrow and we may already have waited too long. It may be 20 years from now and we'll just barely make it if we spend our whole GNP on it starting now. It may be 50 years from now and we'll make it if we proceed at full normal speed without letting up. We don't know, and if we wait to find out before we start developing habitat in space it'll surely be too late. Let's develop the capability to survive now, then later if it turns out Earth-disaster isn't immediate and space-life isn't really lots of fun we can sit on our laurels with space-life as our "lifeboat" when the disaster does approach. With massive proportions of our national budget dedicated to a single attempt to survive, by massive military buildup in the hope that MAD will save us from the USSR and all other possible causes of our demise will not strike any time soon, isn't it reasonable to spend some money on another attempt to survive, by expanding into space, in case MAD doesn't work or any of the other kinds of disasters surprizes us? >From ihnp4!zehntel!hplabs!ames!al Thu Aug 2 04:34:32 1984 Here are some things we get now, after only 20 years of work in the field: Communications: o Live broadcasts around the world (e.g., Olympics) o Inter-continental telephone o Direct broadcast TV (just starting) o Video conferencing - used for business and education Earth observation: o Weather prediction o Pollution monitoring o Arms control o Prevent nasty military surprises (Pearl Harbor would be impossible with today's spy satellites) o Resource surveys (e.g., crop prediction) o Resource location (e.g., oil and gas formations) Science o Planetary pictures and close up inspection o All kinds of astronomy - stellar, galactic, solar, infra-red, etc. o Materials science Exitement Here's what we will undoubtedly get within a decade or two: Materials o Improved computer chips o New drugs, e.g., possibly a cure for diabetes o Stronger materials o Better understanding of materials processes leading to improved ground production. Tourism o A chance for fairly rich folks to orbit. In the longer term, the cost might come down to present trip to Europe style vacations. Retirement o Many of the problems of aging would be allieviated by removing gravity. A low or zero G retirement community might be viable soon after the year 2000 if we step on it. More of the same for everything listed under right now. But most of all, in the very long term (several decades) , we get real estate. And lots of it. It has been estimated that the three largest asteroids contain sufficient material to construct space colonies with a livable area equal to several thousand times the entire surface area of Earth - including oceans and inhospitable mountains, desert and jungle. What's more, every inch of that territory can be totally cherried out (I reveal my Southern California upbringing). The main issue in convincing people of the worth of the space program is to relieve them of their inaccurate idea of the cost. To illustrait, note that 6 to 8 days of DOD or social program operations is equal, in cost, to a year of NASA, or the entire space station budget (roughly). >From inuxc!ihnp4!zehntel!hplabs!sdcrdcf!sdcsvax!sdccsu3!keves Tue Aug 7 23:05:19 1984 Ok. If anyone out there reads SF, you have probably come across most of the reasons for space travel. I can think of a few off hand, but I wont go into details. 1. Population growth on Earth. 2. Life off Earth. Technology and wars possible. We always seem to need wars. 3. Fun and adventure. (More Heinlein oriented) 4. Mineral Wealth of Asteroids and Planets. 5. Better factory conditions for producing flawless "stuff". 6. Evolution of Man. 7. Expansion of Man's empire. 8. Gain in knowledge about just about everthing. 9. Immediate gain in technology. IE. Pocket Calculators,etc... And Most Importantly, The SURVIVAL OF THE HUMAN RACE. Hope it helps -- "A is A" - Ayn Rand Name: Brian Keves USnail: UCSD Computer Center Usenet: ...!sdcsvax!sdccsu3!keves C-010 ...!sdcsvax!sdcattb!za62 La Jolla, Ca. 92093 >From inuxc!ihnp4!zehntel!dual!amd!decwrl!decvax!tektronix!tekig1!mikeha Thu Aug 2 23:00:37 1984 Relay-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site pur-ee.UUCP It may not be possible to convince Joe Average of the benefits of continued funding of NASA and research in space, generally. Still, an attempt should be made. For "ammunition", I refer Mr. Brandt to "the dean of space-age fiction". Robert Heinlein has made a living of pointing out in many not-so-subtle ways that the exploration of space is one of those rare government-sponsored projects that has created more wealth than it has consumed, one way or the other. Apropos (and, most especially apropos) Mr. Average's preference for having his medical care subsidized, see "Spinoff" in Heinlein's _E_x_p_a_n_d_e_d _U_n_i_v_e_r_s_e (c. 1980, Robt. Heinlein, published by Ace Books, N.Y., NY) The article is primarily an abridgement of Heinlein's testimony before the House Select Committee on Aging and the House Committee on Science and Technology on the subject of "Applications of Space Technology for the Elderly and Handi- capped." Heinlein points out a number of the life-prolonging medical spinoffs of space technology, rather colorfully illustrating his points by relating the use of these spin- offs in the case of a medical problem of his own. Joe Average might consider what another ten years of life is worth. No, I don't mean ten years of decrepitude, but ten healthy years made possible by a technology that would not exist but for the space program. >From ihnp4!qubix!msc Sun Aug 5 15:57:37 1984 Because the world's economy is based on continual expansion. This isn't going to change. The only way for this to continue is if we expand off this planet. Also we can move dirty industries into space and think about space colonies since the population keeps expanding. To summarize, it's the only way the people of this planet can continue the way they they have been going for hundreds (thousands?) of years. Mark >From inuxc!ihnp4!zehntel!hplabs!hao!ames!eugene Sun Aug 5 15:28:41 1984 Justifying the space program using 'spinoffs' does not buy it in Congress. First, many so called spinoffs, electronic minaturization (sp) a good example, have been argued down because that would have happened anyway (NASA didn't really have much to do with it) or that has been argued that "free enterprise" did the work. Second, spinoffs are highly unpredictable, extreme case, justifying chemical warfare research because of possible spinoffs to cancer research [This work has been done at U of U]. So, I stopped arguing this track, but I do acknowledge benefits (Tang). No, Joe Blow on the street needs to see that we are living in the space age. For example, the theory of relatively is just seeing "practical" use: we are starting to think about wire lengths in electronics, perhaps the consumer of the future might, too. The space age is now involved with many aspects of day to day life. All you need to do to see how vital some of this is: 1) turn off all weather satellites, especially during storm seasons. Don't forget to tell people that they could be used. 2) turn off all communication and TV satellites 3) turn off numerous other navigation and satellites This might be akin to turning off all traffic lights, but a bit more removed. Perhaps, we should not subsidize space so much. We are heavily involved in the space age: even arms control to an extend. Direct research such as plantary exploration gives us a comparison of our planet to others, and directly enlarges our understanding. This reason is subtle, and almost borders on spinoffs, but it is not a spinoff. Lastly, the most difficult to fathom reason, we must explore space, because that is what separates us from the rest of the cosmic 'slime' on spaceship earth. [Sagan would have used more elioquent words: 'star stuff'] Our desire for exploration is what separates us from the more primitive tribes (my favorite are the Sherpas, as I am a climber). Modern man got where he is because of his sense of time and the future (planning ahead). Many other cultures (few left) are unable or unwilling to utilize time. Modern man has to learn to balance present needs with future desires. If we let the present dominate our thinking [it is important], then we fall back down the evolutionary ladder. I think your (my descendents came East, same difference) Westward migration and subsequent Alaska and imperialist (to a degree) fortes into other nations are a reflection of this latter. Space might give us an opportunity to continue without killing ourselves. Let's hope we can continue without: 1) destroying the Earth (a spacecraft) and ourselves 2) ruining other worlds in the process I have heard social commentators mention '"Japanese" island mentality' as a positive social force. Perhaps, we need a bit of "Earth island mentality," too. --eugene miya NASA Ames Research Center {hplabs,dual,menlo70,hao}!ames!aurora!eugene emiya@ames-vmsb.ARPA p.s. I wish I could be as eloquent as Carl. >From ihnp4!dual!amd!decwrl!sun!tj Wed Aug 8 03:58:24 1984 One very convencing reason that I use a lot is that the Human race will not be able to survive otherwise. If we do not get off this planet and reduce the risk of being able to wipe out the race in one blow, then... Cal Thixton Sun Microsystems p.s. where is Luke when you need him? >From ihnp4!mhuxl!ulysses!pyuxww!pyuxn!u1100a!abnjh!estate Fri Aug 10 23:34:24 1984 "Because It's There!" Sorry, my fingers got away for a minute, but their back now. Good Reasons: 1. Incredable advances in medicine. 2. Incredable advances in technology (silicon chips etc.) 3. A reasonable place from which to monitor the Earth. 4. A new place to dump our wastes. 5. It's fun. 6. The creation of previously unheard of alloys. etc... And not only that, but if we survive long enough we might be able to convince the government to have a war up there instead of down here! And, if that fails, maybe we can all go up there and let them have a war down here! (Visions From The Orcrest Stone) Carl D. >From inuxc!ihnp4!houxm!houxz!vax135!cornell!uw-beaver!tektronix!hplabs!sri-unix!buell%lsu.csnet@csnet-relay.arpa Tue Aug 7 18:37:10 1984 From: Duncan A. Buell The space program--how do we justify it to Congress? Beats the hell out of me, and I have been close to the space program since my father learned rocketry in Huntsville in 1951. How does Congress justify spending money on the arts? on public TV? How did the Duke of Brunswick justify subsi- dizing Gauss? Apart from the obvious (justified or unjustified) desires of the military for space ability, the people who want to explore space do it, I suppose, because it's there, because it would be a denial of some of our more fundamental lusts to have the technology to "look beyond the ranges" and not do so. And Congress pays for it because they can be sucked in by the same urges. That, I think, is all there is to it. That certainly does not suggest practical approaches to going after continued funding. Should the turkeys outnumber the visionaries in Congress, the space program can expect lean years--and has seen some of them. On the other hand, maybe this does suggest funding approaches. Don't try to show that it's centsible to go into space. Just sell the dream. Rational arguments are always in danger of being refuted by better rational argu- ments. A good irrational hunger is a much better bet. No flames in response to this, please. I really don't know any sure-fire justifications for going into space that aren't military. I do know that we'd be less as a species if we didn't succumb to some of the urges we have, like pointing up and wanting to go there. >From inuxc!ihnp4!houxm!houxz!vax135!cornell!uw-beaver!tektronix!hplabs!sri-unix!KIRK.TYM@OFFICE-2.ARPA Thu Aug 9 16:30:00 1984 From: Kirk Kelley What if a very hard study showed that greater relative funding of space exploration over other activities increased our viability, at least as a nation. Such a study may be doable even by just the collaboration of those on this list. If it turned out that a significant increase in viability would result, would it have any impact on congress? -- kirk ------------------------------ Date: 13 Aug 84 10:23:20-PDT (Mon) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: hplabs!sdcrdcf!sdcsvax!sdccs6!ix241 @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: Re: Tethered Generators David Brin has used this idea in a short story that appeared in Analog magazine in Oct or Nov 1983. The idea has also been discussed at the California Space Institute over the last couple of years. John Testa UCSD Chem sdccs6!ix241 ------------------------------ Date: 14 Aug 1984 14:14:43-EDT From: Dale.Amon at CMU-RI-FAS Subject: Mondale Did you hear about Mondale's recent trip to Huntsville? He promised his audience that he would "not disband NASA". ------------------------------ Date: 14 Aug 1984 14:40:07-EDT From: Dale.Amon at CMU-RI-FAS Subject: 24 hr industry As a native Pittsburgher, used to seeing the bright glow of bessemers and pouring lighting up the night sky, I can absolutely assure you that heavy industry is a 24 hour a day effort, IF demand is up. If demand is low, even given energy costs, it is cheaper to run in daylight because I believe the night shift has higher pay. And tends to work less. I believe the battery technology is just about at the level required for the electric car. The Polyacetylene (and related materials) I mentioned earlier is FAR superior to lead acid. THe only real question is temperature characteristics. Output tends to drop of drastically with temperature, as anyone from these cold northern climes knows all to well. Researchers feel they can come up with polymers that will exhibit good temperature/output characteristics as well. The work was done at Penn State University, and has been published in a number of journals. It was also mentioned in the Britannica yearbook of science for either 1981 or 1982. What is also interesting is the material may also be a sort of polymer semiconductor, maybe even for solar cell use. Production of plastic films can be quite cheap. Think of a battery material made of something like saran wrap... -------------------------------- PS: Say hello to Ben for me, and tell him Jim Porto said hello. Jim was quite helpful to us here at Pgh L5. Dale Amon ------------------------------ Date: 14 Aug 84 8:56:14-PDT (Tue) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: hplabs!hao!noao!astrovax!wls @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: Re: More of same (electric motors and low end torque) My father had many electric motor patents to his name. The last project my he was working on before he died last month was an electric motor which used a custom VLSI chip to operate the motor at an optimal point at various load and speed conditions. Thus one could make a much smaller motor of the same power. I am not sure but I think it was basically an induction type motor and the circuitry delivered an AC with (at least) the frequency tweaked for optimal operation. I am not sure what other parameters the circuitry adjusted. Work on this motor continues as AMETEK/Lamb Electric, in Kent, Ohio. -- Bill Sebok Princeton University, Astrophysics {allegra,akgua,burl,cbosgd,decvax,ihnp4,noao,princeton,vax135}!astrovax!wls ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 16-Aug-84 0405 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #277 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 277 Today's Topics: Re: More of same (electric motors and low end torque) RE: The Government in Space RE: The Government in Space NASA Activities TOC July 1984 v 15, n 7 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 14 Aug 84 22:53:18-PDT (Tue) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: ihnp4!mgnetp!burl!clyde!watmath!wateng!ksbszabo @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: Re: More of same (electric motors and low end torque) ....I wonder when the low end torque problem will be addressed... Low end torque is one thing an electric motor should have lots of. A series wound motor (like one in your electric drill) create highest torque when stalled. An induction motor ( clocks, pumps, anything that is basically A.C. only ) generate very little low end torque, with maximum torque occurring at ~90% of no-load rpm's. I remember an article in a Popular Science of a few year ago. This fellow had an electric car with a gas turbine that recharged the batteries whenever they needed it. One of the things that impressed the reporter type the most was the LOUD screech, blue smoke and the black left on the driveway when the inventor pulled out..... (hopefully the blue smoke was not from the windings!). Kevin -- Kevin Szabo watmath!wateng!ksbszabo (Elec Eng, U of Waterloo) ------------------------------ Date: 15 Aug 1984 1525 PST From: Bruce Bon Subject: RE: The Government in Space To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: BON@JPL-ROBOTICS.ARPA There is at least some truth in what JoSH says regarding the "quick-buck" theory of government. I believe that the current Earth-bound status quo is metastable -- i.e. it will take a fairly big push to overcome the status quo, but after that then the settlement of space will come naturally, inevitably. My most optimistic estimate of the push required amounts to at least $100 billion! I don't see the necessary funds coming forth from the private sector under any reasonable scenario within the next 50 years. Part of the consequence of this assessment (which I hope is pessimistic!) is that if I am to see the settlement of space, the government must do it! Since what happens after I die has little meaning to me, I will use the "quick-buck" theory to get what I want -- I am selfish!! Beyond my own selfishness, there is a serious possibility that before we can expand into space, we (the human race) will obliterate our ability to do so. For this reason, I really do believe that the "public good" and my personal gain coincide. If I could live a thousand years and was assured that World War III would not occur, I probably would agree with JoSH's conclusion. Since neither is necessarily true, I will continue to support government funding for space development. Bruce Bon Bon@JPL-Robotics ------ ------------------------------ Date: 15 Aug 1984 1525 PST From: Bruce Bon Subject: RE: The Government in Space To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: BON@JPL-ROBOTICS.ARPA There is at least some truth in what JoSH says regarding the "quick-buck" theory of government. I believe that the current Earth-bound status quo is metastable -- i.e. it will take a fairly big push to overcome the status quo, but after that then the settlement of space will come naturally, inevitably. My most optimistic estimate of the push required amounts to at least $100 billion! I don't see the necessary funds coming forth from the private sector under any reasonable scenario within the next 50 years. Part of the consequence of this assessment (which I hope is pessimistic!) is that if I am to see the settlement of space, the government must do it! Since what happens after I die has little meaning to me, I will use the "quick-buck" theory to get what I want -- I am selfish!! Beyond my own selfishness, there is a serious possibility that before we can expand into space, we (the human race) will obliterate our ability to do so. For this reason, I really do believe that the "public good" and my personal gain coincide. If I could live a thousand years and was assured that World War III would not occur, I probably would agree with JoSH's conclusion. Since neither is necessarily true, I will continue to support government funding for space development. Bruce Bon Bon@JPL-Robotics ------ ------------------------------ Date: 15 Aug 84 15:07:11-PDT (Wed) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: hplabs!ames!eugene @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: NASA Activities TOC July 1984 v 15, n 7 [] Administrators Column - Quality Circles President Features Space Station at London Economic Summit Spacelab 3 and 2 Payload Specialists Named New NASA Educational Program for Science and Math [Young Astronauts Youth Organization] New Publications What's New in NASA Television and Radio Programming NASA to Participate in 32nd Annual EAA Convention and Sport Aviation Exhibition Auto Technology Feasible for Aircraft Applications Log of Apollo 11 Crew Members Named for Future Space Shuttle Flights Crew Member Added to Shuttle Mission 41-G NASA Works to Improve Aerial Application of Chemicals Agency Sponsered Development Opportunities 1984 Launch Activity ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 17-Aug-84 0405 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #278 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 278 Today's Topics: Re: Re: Space tether speed of satellite query Re: NASA Publications Shuttle Satellite Retrieval Scheduled Re: The Government in Space Smallish habitat in LEO ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 15 Aug 84 21:57:30-PDT (Wed) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: decvax!cca!ima!inmet!dwp @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: Re: Re: Space tether There is a new(??) novel out that covers the "tethered satellite" approach very well, it's "The Fall of Anansi", by Pournelle and G-somebody. The plot was a shuttle carrying a load of wonder-fiber from an L-5 factory is disabled by sabotage in low-earth orbit, and they use the wonder-fiber and some snazzy physics to get down. More than this is a spoiler. David Pachura {harpo,decvax!cca!ima,esquire,ihnp4}!inmet!dwp ------------------------------ Date: 15 Aug 84 9:34:44-PDT (Wed) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: ihnp4!ihuxe!rainbow @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: speed of satellite query I saw a curious sight last weekend which I'd like explained as I am not one to believe in UFO's. I was staring at the sky at about midnight. Nice and dark so I had a terrific view. All of a sudden I noticed one of the stars on the eastern horizon moving rather quickly. It traveled in a straight line and disappeared over the western horizon in about two minutes, three at most. Now the question is, what did I see? I was not aware that satellites move so quickly in orbit. It was not a plane(no noise, no other lights other than a white speck as indicated by high powered binoculars). It was not a shooting star because they travel faster and tend to burn up rather quickly. It definitely appeared to be rather large because it was giving off a reflection yet it also appeared to be in orbit. Can anyone help? Robert PS. It was about 10-15 degrees to the south from directly overhead. ------------------------------ Date: 16 Aug 1984 12:41:45-EDT From: Paul.Fussell at CMU-CS-H Subject: Re: NASA Publications The nice person at the USGPO said the serial number for one of the previously posted books was slightly incorrect. The correct entry: Stages to Saturn: A Technological History of the Apollo/Saturn Launch Vehicles. S/N 033-000-00794-9 $12.00 (last digit of the SN changes from 0 to 9.) ------------------------------ Date: 16 Aug 84 2310 PDT From: Ron Goldman Subject: Shuttle Satellite Retrieval Scheduled To: space@MIT-MC.ARPA a004 2149 16 Aug 84 AM-Shuttle-Satellite Retrieval,390 Shuttle Crew To Retrieve Satellite Placed In Wrong Orbit By HOWARD BENEDICT AP Aerospace Writer CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) - A space shuttle flight in November will attempt to retrieve an Indonesian communications satellite that fired into the wrong orbit last February, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration announced Thursday. Astronaut Joseph Allen, maneuvering with a rocket-powered back pack, will leave the shuttle, attach himself to the satellite with a latching pole and hold the payload steady so it can be grasped by the shuttle's robot arm. The satellite, Palapa B2, will be berthed in the cargo bay and returned to Earth for repair and resale by two insurance organizations, Merritt Syndicates Ltd., London, and International Technology Underwriters (Intec), Washington, D.C. The Indoneisian government has signed over all recovery and salvage rights for Palapa B2 to Merritt and Intec, its principal insurance underwriters. Indonesia received a $75 million insurance payment for the loss of the satellite. Palapa B2 and Western Union's Westar 6 communications satellite were released from the cargo bay of space shuttle Challenger last February, but both were injected into useless orbits when rocket nozzles failed as onboard motors fired to boost them toward stationary orbits 22,300 miles high. Western Union received a $105 million insurance payment and is negotiating an agreement with Merritt Syndicate that could lead to a retrieval of Westar 6 on the same November shuttle mission. Indonesia and Western Union each paid Hughes Communications International $35 million to $40 million for the satellites. They also took out insurance for launch costs and loss of business in case of failure. Refurbishment and resale of Palapa B2 and possibly Westar 6 would help offset the payments made by the insurance companies. Under the Palapa B2 agreement announced Thursday, the insurance underwriters will pay NASA the costs for the retrieval, with the price not to exceed $4.8 million. Palapa B2 is an an orbit ranging from 700 to 800 miles high, and it would have to be lowered to an altitude of 200 miles to be within the range of space shuttle Discovery. That would be done by ground commands to the satellite's steering jets. The flight would be the second for Discovery, now awaiting an Aug. 29 liftoff of its twice-delayed maiden flight. Commanding the retrieval mission in November will be astronaut Fred Hauck. ap-ny-08-17 0049EDT *************** ------------------------------ Date: 16 Aug 84 19:30:29-PDT (Thu) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: hplabs!ames!al @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: Re: The Government in Space Many writers to the net, including the one I'm responding to, claim that government cannot develop space. One wonders, in that case, how we went in only 25 years from nothing at all to: o A half dozen moon landings (manned). o Two Mars landings. o Several Venus landings (USSR) o Several space stations (Skylab and Salyuts) o A reuseable space plane (Shuttle) o Three visits to Saturn and Jupiter o Visits to Mercury o An in space infra-red map of the heavens (IRAS) o Regular and frequent manned missions to low Earth orbit. with strictly government projects. I believe that the time has come for private enterprise to enter space, but it is unproductive and inaccurate to denigrate the contribution that government has and will continue to make to space development. Also, as private firms get real experience in space I think you may find that they may not out perform NASA as much as some believe. For example, the recent Starstruct launch - all of 3 seconds of perfect flight followed by another 11 seconds with a failed valve - cost (according to Space Calendar) 3-4 times as much as expected and and took 3-4 times as long as expected. Many a flame could be avoided by good hard data and real hands on experiance. ------------------------------ Date: 16 Aug 84 19:37:15-PDT (Thu) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: hplabs!ames!al @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: Smallish habitat in LEO I recently read a two page paper that claimed that a smallish space station with a large window pointed towards the Sun and rotated could supply air movement, thermal characteristics, and water movements necessary for a nice habitat. How about cutting off the end of an external tank, putting in a window, rotating it at 1 rpm, fixing up the interior and living in it? Sound like a good place to retire (you won't need your cane with that low gravity)? ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 18-Aug-84 0403 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #279 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 279 Today's Topics: Mock Countdown Delayed, Then Successful Re: Re: Space tether ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 15 Aug 84 20:58:44-PDT (Wed) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: ihnp4!mhuxl!ulysses!allegra!alice!alb @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: Mock Countdown Delayed, Then Successful A mock countdown was delayed today by three hours when an engine computer refused to receive a program from ground computers. After the trouble had been solved, the countdown continued, ending with a simulated abort mimicking the engine cutoff abort in June. NASA said that the particular abort is a standard part of all simulated countdowns, and that is was just a coincidence that it mirrored the June abort. ------------------------------ Date: 16 Aug 84 13:54:48-PDT (Thu) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: hplabs!sdcrdcf!sdcsvax!sdccs6!ix241 @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: Re: Re: Space tether Gah!! It is _The Descent of Anansi_ by Larry Niven and Steve Barnes!! Jerry Pournelle has several novels co-authored with Niven. I think another is going to be out later this year. John Testa UCSD Chem sdcsvax!sdccs6!ix241 ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 19-Aug-84 0404 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #280 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 280 Today's Topics: Illegality of NERVA's??!! Satellite Rescue in November Re: Illegality of NERVA's??!! Very Cheap Solar Cells, Polyacetylene Batteries Re: several Re: speed of satellite query ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 16 Aug 84 8:01:50-PDT (Thu) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: pur-ee!CS-Mordred!Pucc-H.Physics.els @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: Illegality of NERVA's??!! In a recent article it was mentioned (sorry, I didn't save the article) that even though NERVA-type nuclear rockets are feasible and economical, they are somehow illegal. Could someone post something more specific about that?? Maybe we can find out whose bright idea it was to strip us of this technology, and then we can perform a retroactive abortion on him!! ------------------------------------------------------------------------ A message from the mental maze that calls itself: ERIC STROBEL UUCP: {decvax,ucbvax,harpo,allegra,inuxc,seismo,teklabs}!pur-ee!Physics:els INTERNET: els @ pur-phy.UUCP ------------------------------ Date: 17 Aug 84 4:53:17-PDT (Fri) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: ihnp4!mgnetp!burl!ulysses!allegra!alice!alb @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: Satellite Rescue in November Palapa B2 will be the object of the second shuttle satellite rescue attempt during the November flight of the Discovery. NASA announced yesterday that it had signed an agreement with the two insurance companies which took over ownership of the satellite upon paying $75 million to the Indonesian government to return the satellite to Earth in November. Astronaut Joseph Allen will fly a MMU to the satellite, grapple it, and hold it steady while the shuttle crew grabs it with the RMS. NASA is still talking with the insurance companies that now own Westar 6, the other ill-fated satellite of Challenger's mission earlier this year, about possibly retrieving it. ------------------------------ id AA15639; Sat, 18 Aug 84 14:34:30 pdt id AA06825; Sat, 18 Aug 84 14:34:28 pdt Date: Sat, 18 Aug 84 14:37:04 pdt From: Rick McGeer (on an h19-u) Message-Id: <8408182137.572@ucbchip.ARPA> id AA00572; Sat, 18 Aug 84 14:37:04 pdt To: pur-ee!CS-Mordred!Pucc-H.Physics.els@Berkeley, space@Mit-Mc.ARPA Subject: Re: Illegality of NERVA's??!! Cc: If I am not mistaken, the space treaty bans nuclear explosions in space. Whether this provision includes NERVA-type rockets, I don't know. It certainly bans Project Orion. Rick. ------------------------------ id AA05690; Sat, 18 Aug 84 20:55:08 edt id AA08586; Sat, 18 Aug 84 20:54:37 edt Date: 18 Aug 1984 20:34-EDT From: cu-arpa.dietz@Cornell.ARPA Subject: Very Cheap Solar Cells, Polyacetylene Batteries To: space@mit-mc Message-Id: <84/08/18 2034.100@Cornell> Perhaps a better way to make very efficient photovoltaic cells would be to use linear organic conductors, such as polyacetylene. In these polymers conductivity along the polymer axis can be orders of magnitude higher than across it. I propose attaching charged sidechains to the polymer so the electric field along the polymer varies in a sawtooth pattern: - .... .... .... . .... . .... . .... . .... .... .. etc. + A moderate right-to-left eletric field will flatten the shallow parts of this curve, causing current to flow. The same field with polarities reversed will generate a smaller current, since electrons will have to tunnel through the steep parts. The polymer will act as a rectifier. Organic conducting polymers can be grown electrochemically, so it may be possible to plate out solar cells from a solution of monomers. 3M has a space shuttle experiment lined up to investigate growing organic polymer films in zero-G. These cells would probably not be too useful in space, though, because polyacetylene loses conductivity rapidly when exposed to radiation (since one break destroys an entire chain). Polyacetylene battery: I thought these things had major problems with lifetime -- the polyacetylene electrodes break down too quickly. (Please do not respond to this account -- it may disappear soon.) ------------------------------ Date: 15 Aug 84 20:40:55-PDT (Wed) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: decvax!cca!ima!haddock!stevel @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: Re: several Geostar and ELT are not the same or even comparable systems. Geostar tells you where you are if you ask it. ELT tells other people where you are when it thinks you are in trouble. ELT works when you are lying unconcious after a crash. Geostar probably will be broken and if it does work you won't be awake to ask it where you are and how far you have to walk to reach civilazation when you wake up. A great concept is a crash hardend, i.e. expensive, Geostar/ELT device that tells the Geostar main computer that something has happened. ------------------------------ Date: 16 Aug 84 17:49:41-PDT (Thu) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: hplabs!hpda!fortune!amd!decwrl!sunny @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: Re: speed of satellite query Holly Martians, Batman! It was just YAU (Yet Another UFO). No big deal. If NorAD computers are programmed to ignore them, then we can too. UFOs are real: the Air Force Project Blue Book doesn't exist. -- {ucbvax|decvax|ihnp4}!sun!sunny (Sunny Kirsten of Sun Microsystems) ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 20-Aug-84 0405 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #281 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 281 Today's Topics: Re: re: # of satellites Re: speed of satellites query ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 16 Aug 84 21:17:32-PDT (Thu) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: decvax!cca!ima!ism780!martin @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: Re: re: # of satellites I believe you can get the current number of orbiting payloads and/or junk by calling the Space Defense Center in Cheyene Mountain. I don't think the number of payloads is classified. When I was a programmer in the USAF working at the SDC, a friend and I once put the coordinates of his garage roof into the Look Angle computation program. Out came look angles for all the satellites (the unclassified ones, of course) oriented to his garage. That night we set up a small telescope up there and were able to find most of the ones we had listed quite easily. You might be able to get similar information for your garage. martin smith, INTERACTIVE Systems ------------------------------ Date: 17 Aug 84 11:31:42-PDT (Fri) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: hplabs!hao!noao!terak!cliff @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: Re: speed of satellites query Yup, what you probably saw was a satellite. Based on your description of brightness and speed it was probably 400km - 800km high and in a low inclination orbit. The highest inclination possible is 90 degrees or polar. Determining inclination really requires two seperated observations on the same orbit. Next shuttle launch watch how fast the crew goes across North America. 'bout nine minutes. At 320km altitude the orbit time is less then 90 minutes. (please don't flame my math I left my battery operated brain at home today so we're talking ballpark) What I find interesting is your time of observation, midnight. The trigometry get a little thick but that bird was sunlit from directly over the pole. This same object at the same position, relative to you, would probably not be visible in the winter. I usually see the best satellites about 60-90 minutes after sunset. Any later than that and the ones still in the sun are so high you need binoculars to spot them. They also have a slower apparent motion so they don't catch your eye as well. A geostationary satellite has a real slow apparent motion :-). If you can see one of those babies please donate your eyes to Kitt Peak. My best satellite story involved a newspaper blurp saying that STS 2 would be visible at 4:51 am over Phoenix. They were in a white side down attitude doing some kind of heating structure tests. I turned on the TV because one of the normally blank cable channels was displaying the raw NASA feed. (I also watched the generic launch without the network boobs stepping all over CAPCOM) The houston display showed the shuttle halfway between Honolulu and L.A. at 4:44. So I went outside and looked to the southwest. BOOM! It came out of the shadow and was the brightest object in the moonless sky. In three or four minutes I lost it in the northeast stars and ran inside. That sucker was over Chicago! I still get goosebumps from that one. I remain Cliff Cordes ...hao!noao!terak!cliff ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 21-Aug-84 0404 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #282 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 282 Today's Topics: NASA Shuttle pictures on Satt. TV NASA Activities ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Sender: Isdale.es@XEROX.ARPA Date: 20 Aug 84 13:01:14 PDT (Monday) Subject: NASA Shuttle pictures on Satt. TV To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC.ARPA From: Jerry Isdale Would someone please repost the data necessary to get the NASA pictures on a home satt. dish? When this data was last posted, I had no need for it. Now I have access to a dish and would like to see the next shuttle pictures. Thanks in advance ~ Jerry ------------------------------ Date: 20 Aug 84 10:49:27-PDT (Mon) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: hplabs!hao!ames!eugene @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: NASA Activities [Line eater quote: "funny, in my environment, I have yet to meet a friendly user"] Several people has requested info on obtaining NASA Activities. I wish it were free, but: It is a monthly publication for employees of the agency. Subscription by Superintendent of Documents, US GPO Washington DC 20402 Subscription rates are $23 / year domestic and $28.75 foreign. Barbara E. Selby Editor, Code LFD-2 NASA HQ Washington, DC 20546 --eugene miya NASA ARC ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 22-Aug-84 0405 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #283 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 283 Today's Topics: Back to the moon? Re: Very Cheap Solar Cells "Status of the repaired satellite? - (nf)" ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 21 Aug 84 2029 PDT From: Ross Finlayson Subject: Back to the moon? To: space@MIT-MC.ARPA n086 1802 21 Aug 84 AM-LUNAR Moon Could Be Big 'Gas Station' in the Sky By SANDRA BLAKESLEE c.1984 N.Y. Times News Service LA JOLLA, Calif. - A panel of scientists and engineers Tuesday reported to the space agency that it ''makes sense'' for future space operations to exploit materials found on the moon and in asteroids rather than rely on materials from Earth. The panel's oral recommendation to officials of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, to be followed by a written report, came after 10 weeks of debate. The panel members disagreed over whether a permanent moon base should be established to mine oxygen for rocket fuel. The panel was one of several sponsored by the space agency to study the future of space exploration. A second study group, which met in April at Los Alamos, N.M., says it will recommend in October that the United States establish a permanent moon base in the next decade. A NASA group is also studying the feasibility of a moon base. Some participants in the study here disagreed with the panel's recommendation, saying that all the resources needed to support space exploration are abundant on Earth. All that is needed, these dissidents said, is to find cheaper ways to deliver Earth's resources into orbit. According to Stan Sadin, deputy director of program development at NASA, the space agency financed the $62,000 study to ''help us decide where we're going'' after 1992, when a space station authorized by President Reagan is scheduled to become operational. The study was co-sponsored by the American Society for Engineering and hosted by the California Space Institute, a part of the University of California system located in La Jolla. The 20 participants, more than half of whom had no previous connection with NASA, included a physician, behavioral scientist, architect, chemist, management specialist and law professor, as well as several geologists, space scientists and engineers. Dozens of space experts testified before the group throughout the study. The analogy of conquering a new frontier was dominant throughout the ''summer study,'' Sadin said, referring to the idea that initial reconnaissance is followed by stages of exploration, which, in turn, are followed by exploitation. The study began with two basic assumptions, said David McKay, a geologist at the Johnson Space Center who led the overall exercise. One assumption, he said, is of a permanent, growing human presence in space. The other is that humans in space will inevitably want to become more self-sufficient in terms of materials, supplies, management and operations. ''Pioneers used local wood and stone to make shelter, roads and wagons,'' McKay said. ''We will use material in space to supply shelter and transportation.'' Tuesday's space program, he pointed out, is virtually dependent on Earth. ''Can we learn how to constrict the umbilical cord to Earth?'' he asked. Those in favor of using space resources point out that the moon, by composition, is half oxygen, which could be extracted, according to the former astronaut Buzz Aldrin, to fuel rockets. Liquid hydrogen mixed with liquid oxygen in a basic propellant. Metals and bulk soil can also be mined to build shelters, Aldrin said. Since the moon's gravitational field is a sixth the strength of Earth's, he added, it would be cheaper and easier to satisfy a large fraction of our space needs with lunar materials. In this view, the moon should become a gigantic ''gas station'' in the sky. Asteroids are viewed as similarly valuable. One small asteroid can apparently yield a billion to 10 billion tons of water. The reason to go to the moon, said James Burke, a space expert at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, is that ''it can help us transcend our problems.'' ''A lunar base deserves national support,'' he said, ''because if it manages to divert money away from the weapons race, everyone is better off.'' Other study participants disagreed. ''A lunar base is a dead-end,'' said Rocco Fazzolare, an energy expert at the University of Arizona. And William Lewis, of Clemson University, said, ''It's silly to put Manhattan on the moon.'' ''We can make oxygen on Earth for pennies,'' Fazzolare said. ''We're a water planet. I think we should concentrate on building a better transportation system to deliver what we want in space. ''The shuttle is like a little scout. It comfortably carries a few people at a time. We need a big 18-wheeler, we need a big dumb booster.'' Also, he said, the moon does not have an abundant source of hydrogen, which is also required for rocket fuel. If liquid hydrogen made on Earth has to be carried into space to be mixed with oxygen extracted from the moon, he said, ''we're wasting our time.'' There may be philosophical reasons to go to the moon, Fazzolare said, but ''we should go there to scout things out, not to build a huge lunar station.'' ''From a national security viewpoint we should go and that is rationale enough,'' he added. The Soviet Union appears to be developing large booster rockets and experimenting with long sorties in space, said . Sadin. ''There are indications they are interested in the moon,'' he added. A study participant who is an expert on space law, Nathan Goldman, of the University of Texas, said the United States held that no one can own the moon. ''But whoever gets there first,'' he said, ''will have a big say in how it is used.'' ------------------------------ Date: 20 Aug 84 11:09:35-PDT (Mon) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: hplabs!tektronix!orca!shark!hutch @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: Re: Very Cheap Solar Cells < The robot doesn't seem too energetic since it got a tan > Has anyone looked into organic solar collection? Plants do a real fine job of collecting and storing solar energy; does anyone know how efficient they are (not 100% by any means, since they are usually sensitive in a fairly narrow bandwidth of yellow-green) ?? An organic compound engineered to translate sunlight into ATP and another that turned ATP into electricity would be an interesting way to power a car. . . OK, I know, this is all just a bit beyond current state-of-the-art. But not too far, I suspect. Hutch ------------------------------ Date: 20 Aug 84 9:30:39-PDT (Mon) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: hplabs!tektronix!daemon!bobp @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: "Status of the repaired satellite? - (nf)" Since the U.S. repaired the satellite during the last shuttle excursion I haven't heard what its current status is. Is the satellite functioning again? tektronix!bobp bobp@tektronix bobp.tektronix@csnet-relay ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 23-Aug-84 0406 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #284 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 284 Today's Topics: Re: Why Space? -- Your Answers Problems at Vandenberg AFB Re: "Status of the repaired satellite? - (nf)" CORRECTION to SMM repair article Re: Very Cheap Solar Cells Re: Very Cheap Solar Cells Re: "Status of the repaired satellite? - (nf)" Efficiency of photosynthesis Re: Illegality of NERVA's??!! Re: The Government in Space Re: "Status of the repaired satellite? - (nf)" VAFB Launch Site Termed Defective ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 17 Aug 84 12:01:10-PDT (Fri) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: decvax!cwruecmp!atvax!ncoast!bsa @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: Re: Why Space? -- Your Answers [The world is a Klein bottle] I justify space in two major ways: (1) if Ragnarok (WWIII, the Nightfall War, etc.) ever occurs, we'll survive as a species; and (2) if we do NOT try, we are admitting that the universe is too much for us. Historically speaking, this is equivalent to racial suicide even without war -- we would stagnate into obli- vion. I will not accept this fate; I am a wolf, not a sheep (cf. BEYOND THIS HORIZON). Same author, different note: The afterword to "Spinoff" in EXPANDED UNIVERSE says this about funding attempts: "No, to most citizens of the United States the entire space program plus all its spinoffs is not worth even 5c per day; the polls (and letters to Congress) plainly show it. And they won't believe that 5c figure even if you do the arith- metic right in front of their eyes. They will still think of it as 'all that money' being 'wasted' on 'a few rocks'." Sometimes I grow weary of public ignorance. It takes a dream to escape this; perhaps this explains the popularity of the biggest argument I know for space exploration, dating from September 8, 1966: an argument that begins with the phrase "SPACE: The Final Frontier"... --bsa -- Brandon Allbery: decvax!cwruecmp{!atvax}!ncoast!bsa: R0176@CSUOHIO.BITNET ^ Note name change! 6504 Chestnut Road, Independence, OH 44131 <> (216) 524-1416 "The more they overthink the plumbin', the easier 'tis tae stop up the drain." ------------------------------ Date: 20 Aug 84 21:14:58-PDT (Mon) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: decvax!decwrl!dec-rhea!dec-elmer!goun @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: Problems at Vandenberg AFB CNN reported tonight that there are problems at the space shuttle launch site under construction at Vandenberg AFB. One inspector called the site, "An accident waiting to happen." Another said that quality has taken a back seat to the pressures of the construction schedule. The space shuttle orbiter Discovery is scheduled to lift off from Vandenberg in the Fall of 1985. -- Roger Goun ARPA: goun%elmer.DEC@decwrl.ARPA UUCP: {allegra, decvax, ihnp4, ucbvax}!decwrl!dec-rhea!dec-elmer!goun ------------------------------ Date: 21 Aug 84 9:06:04-PDT (Tue) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: hplabs!ames!hao!woods @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: Re: "Status of the repaired satellite? - (nf)" If you are referring to the Solar Maximum Mission satellite, then I can tell you exactly, since we analyze practically all the data from that satellite here at HAO. For some of us, that repair literally saved our jobs. The major repair to the satellite involved fixing the damaged attitude control system of the satellite itself (as opposed to the instruments on board the satellite). This repair can only be described as a complete success. Of the 7 scientific data-gathering devices on board, 5 of them are functioning perfectly, a sixth (UVSP) is functioning in a degraded mode due to a microprocessor problem which has nothing to do with what was repaired on the shuttle, and the last is not working in spite of the fact that the main power supply was replaced during the shuttle mission. It was hoped that this would fix a problem that they had been having with it, but it did not. Overall the repair mission was successful. The scientists here seem very happy with the data now being received (we don't receive it here, they get it at Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, MD., and ship it here on mag tapes for analysis and display). If you want more information, feel free to write to me or Andy Stanger (hao!stanger). --Greg -- {ucbvax!hplabs | allegra!nbires | decvax!stcvax | harpo!seismo | ihnp4!stcvax} !hao!woods "... the heat come 'round and busted me for smiling on a cloudy day..." ------------------------------ Date: 21 Aug 84 12:21:07-PDT (Tue) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: hplabs!ames!hao!woods @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: CORRECTION to SMM repair article I have been informed that I overstated how much of the SMM data we see here at HAO. It is only one of the instruments on board that we analyze most of the data from. *Some* data from the others does eventually end up here. I stand corrected. --Greg -- {ucbvax!hplabs | allegra!nbires | decvax!stcvax | harpo!seismo | ihnp4!stcvax} !hao!woods "... the heat come 'round and busted me for smiling on a cloudy day..." ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 22 Aug 84 10:39:04 pdt From: Rick McGeer (on an aaa-60-s) Message-Id: <8408221739.2100@ucbchip.ARPA> To: hplabs!tektronix!orca!shark!hutch@Berkeley, space@Mit-Mc.ARPA Subject: Re: Very Cheap Solar Cells There's a short discussion of plant efficiencies in Pournelle's "A Step Farther Out". I loaned my copy out, so I don't have it with me, but as I recall the figures he used were certainly under 10%, and (I'm pretty sure) under 5%. The great thing, though, is that we can probably use genetic engineering to double plant efficiencies. Plants also store energy well. Rick. ------------------------------ Date: 22 Aug 84 16:19 PDT From: Woody.pasa@XEROX.ARPA Subject: Re: Very Cheap Solar Cells To: Space@MIT-MC.ARPA cc: Woody.pasa@XEROX.ARPA > Has anyone looked into organic solar collection? Plants do a real > fine job of collecting and storing solar energy; does anyone know > how efficient they are (not 100% by any means, since they are usually > sensitive in a fairly narrow bandwidth of yellow-green) ?? Plants are around 15-20% (as far as my memory tells me; it's been a long time since my biology), and no-one really has a definite idea exactly how a plant manages to convert light to ATP. There's a lot of theories, but nothing really concrete. Photosynthesis is a fairly complex chain of events which occure in most plants, and some of the theories do suggest a sort of compound which gain an electrical potential (which is then converted into the chemical potential needed to convert ADP to ATP). It may be possible to create a process which converts this molecular electrical potential into something useful, but that's many, many years off. (Even if the electrical potential of P700 and related catalysts in photosynthesis does exist, even if the chemical process can be imitated, even if the efficiency of the plants can be achieved, even...) It's easier to burn alcohol. - From the scattered remains of Bill Woody ------------------------------ Date: 21 Aug 84 15:32:44-PDT (Tue) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: hplabs!hao!seismo!brl-tgr!jcp @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: Re: "Status of the repaired satellite? - (nf)" I have seen articles in 'Aviation Week' that indicate that the Solar Max is back in operation again with all but one instrument working. (NASA did not attempt to repair this instrument, it was believed damaged). In fact, one of the largest Solar Flares since 1978 occurred just 3 days after the satellite was recommissioned. Imagery from that flare appeared in Aviation Week. -JCP- ------------------------------ Date: 22 August 1984 23:10-EDT From: Robert E. Bruccoleri Subject: Efficiency of photosynthesis To: SPACE-ENTHUSIASTS @ MIT-MC Photosynthesis can be quite efficient. Under ideal conditions, ratios of energy of combustion of plant products to incident solar energy of 0.3 have been achieved. Rubber plants can make latex at an efficiency of about 15% (from I. Tinoco, K. Sauer, and J. C. Wang, Physical Chemistry, p. 324). On the other hand, I recall (although I couldn't find the source) that many plants have much lower efficiencies of carbon fixation (around 1 to 2%). Bob Bruccoleri ------------------------------ Date: 20 Aug 84 11:59:30-PDT (Mon) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: pur-ee!CS-Mordred!Pucc-H.Physics.els @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: Re: Illegality of NERVA's??!! Who said anything about nuclear explosions??? NERVA was to use a reactor to have fuel burn, achieving an exhaust temperature much higher than ordinary rockets, thus giving a larger specific impulse. I don't remember the details and I hope that someone might post a brief summary of the NERVA project and the alleged illegality. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ A message from the mental maze that calls itself: ERIC STROBEL UUCP: {decvax,ucbvax,harpo,allegra,inuxc,seismo,teklabs}!pur-ee!Physics:els INTERNET: els @ pur-phy.UUCP ------------------------------ Date: 20 Aug 84 16:24:27-PDT (Mon) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: ihnp4!mgnetp!burl!clyde!watmath!utzoo!henry @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: Re: The Government in Space > Many writers to the net, including the one I'm responding to, claim that > government cannot develop space. One wonders, in that case, how we went > in only 25 years from nothing at all to: > o A half dozen moon landings (manned). > ... > o A reuseable space plane (Shuttle) > ... > o Regular and frequent manned missions to low Earth orbit. > with strictly government projects. While I, for one, agree that the government has made useful contributions, this should not be confused with the notion that the government is the *best* organization for developing space. The specific cases I have picked from your list are examples of how the government has botched the details while getting the basics right: * A half dozen moon landings, manned. With no followup. None. Mankind no longer has the capability to land on the moon; it was thrown away after those six missions. It will have to be rebuilt nearly from scratch. The last two flight-ready Saturn 5 boosters, which could have launched Apollos 18 and 19, are now rusting tourist exhibits. ARGHHH!!!!!!!! * A reuseable space plane. Well, sort of reuseable. If the engines turn out to work as well as NASA hopes, despite poor early results. Of course, the thing is five times as large as it needs to be, and as a result the orbiter fleet is about a fifth the size it ought to be. And it's so expensive that expendable boosters are still hot competition. * Regular and frequent manned missions to low Earth orbit. True during the heyday of NASA. Starting to be true again. How many were there between 1970 and 1980? I am not saying that these things weren't worthwhile; they were. But uncritical worship of the way the government has gone into space is grossly inappropriate -- they have botched almost as many things as they have gotten right. > Also, as private firms get real experience in space I think you may find > that they may not out perform NASA as much as some believe. > For example, the recent > Starstruct launch - all of 3 seconds of perfect flight followed by another > 11 seconds with a failed valve - cost (according to Space Calendar) 3-4 times > as much as expected and and took 3-4 times as long as expected. Remember Project Ranger? Six straight failures? Of course, NASA was young then... Give others a chance to get past their teething troubles before you judge them. -- "The trouble with a just economy is, who runs the Bureau of Economic Justice?" Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology {allegra,ihnp4,linus,decvax}!utzoo!henry ------------------------------ Date: 21 Aug 84 10:08:10-PDT (Tue) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: ihnp4!mhuxl!ulysses!allegra!alice!alb @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: Re: "Status of the repaired satellite? - (nf)" I assume you are referring to Solar Max. It is functioning perfectly. In fact, not one week after being repaired, it recorded one of the biggest solar flares on record. ------------------------------ Date: 21 Aug 84 5:08:57-PDT (Tue) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: ihnp4!mgnetp!burl!ulysses!allegra!alice!alb @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: VAFB Launch Site Termed Defective An Air Force investigation has reported that sever defects at the VAFB launch site for the space shuttle will create a ''one-in-five'' chance of the shuttle blowing up upon liftoff. Included in the report are citings of water in cables, bad welding, and sand and other contaminants in oxygen storage areas. The report accused the Air Force and Martin Marietta Corporation, the prime contracter for the site, of providing no quality control. ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 24-Aug-84 0404 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #285 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 285 Today's Topics: Tiny dipoles & femto-diodes (Solar energy conversion) Launch schedule from NASA Act. TOC. Re: Shuttle Satellite Broadcasts Vandenberg delay Re: Illegality of NERVA's??!! Passengers needed to Discovery Launch from Indianapolis or Atlanta ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 23 Aug 1984 08:51:08-EDT From: sde@Mitre-Bedford To: space@mit-mc Subject: Tiny dipoles & femto-diodes (Solar energy conversion) I called the company in question (Phototherm) and spoke to the person who is the inventor's business mgr (and wife). She refused to tell me how much energy was deliverable by the device, or by an aggregation of such devices, and said that to get such information (I did not ask for any details of processes or anything else reasonably construed as secret), I would have to ante up $25,000. Yup, that's twenty-five thousand dollars. It rather makes one sceptical, especially when she referred to its possible strategic uses. My snake-oil alarm has begun to sound, although I'd dearly love the device to be feasible. David sde@mitre-bedford ------------------------------ Date: 22 Aug 84 8:46:34-PDT (Wed) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: hplabs!hao!ames!eugene @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: Launch schedule from NASA Act. TOC. The following table is reproduced from the last NASA Activites. The information is subject to change. I am unable to reprdouce Astro. Candidate information due to lack of time. My responsibilities are impacting the time I can spend on this and other news groups. --eugene miya NASA Ames Research Center emiya@ames-vmsb.ARPA {hplabs,hao,dual}!ames!aurora!eugene Space Shuttle Launches Aug. 29 41-F Discovery (OV-103) KSC Payload (below) SPARTAN-1 Oct. 1 41-G Challenger (OV-099) KSC OSTA-3; ERBS Nov. 2 51-A Discovery (OV-103) KSC Payload: MSL-1, Telesat-H, GAS Dec. 9 51-C Discovery (OV-103) KSC Payload: DOD mission Satellite Deployments from the Shuttle June 23 Syncom IV-1 UUS 41-D Hughes communiations Aug. 29 SBS-D PAM-D 41-F Sat. Bus. Syst. commercial comm. Aug. 30 Syncom IV-2 UUS 41-F Hughes communications Aug. 31 Telestar 3-C PAM-D 41-F AT&T communications Oct. 1 ERBS RMS 41-G Earth Radiation Budget Sat. Nov. 2 Telesat-H PAM-D 51-A Canadian communications Expendable Launches Aug. 2 AMPTE Delta ESMC Active Magnetospheric Particle Tracer Explorer, space physics NASA coop with WG. Sept. NATO-IIID Delta ESMC NATO Comm. Nov. Intelsat VA-C Atlas Centaur ESMC Intelsat intl comm. Dec. San Macro D/L Scout SMR Intl. coop with Italy 4 Qtr AF-16 (ITV-1) Scout WFF USAF Launch Sites: ESMC - Eastern Space and Missile Range, KSC - Kennedy Space Center, SMR - San Marco Range, Indian Ocean; WFF Wallops FLight Facility, Wallops, Is, Va; WSMC - Western Space and Missile Center, VAFB, Ca. UUS - unique upper stage, PAM-D Payload Assist Module; RMS, Remote Manipulator System. ------------------------------ Sender: Isdale.es@XEROX.ARPA Date: 23 Aug 84 09:49:14 PDT (Thursday) Subject: Re: Shuttle Satellite Broadcasts To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC.ARPA cc: Isdale.es@XEROX.ARPA From: Jerry In response to my request for information, Craig Anderson (who sent the earlier information) sent this update. I thought the Digest readers would be interested: ~ Jerry ------------------------------------------------------------ RCA will be transmitting a courtesy feed of NASA's shuttle video/audio transmissions on SATCOM F4, Transponder #24, DownLink Frequency 4180.0 MHz, 83 degrees west longitude. SATCOM F4 is a common satellite used by cable companies as it also carries The Playboy Channel, SportsVision, ESPN, etc., so they may already be using it. The broadcast should begin about 6 hours before launch, and there will be a signal present 24 hours a day, switching between shuttle video/audio (when they're transmitting), Mission Control, or a set of color bars with a character generator. NASA's main satellite for shuttle transmissions has changed from SATCOM F1R to RCA AMERICOM SATCOM F5 (Aurora), Transponder #13, DownLink Frequency 3954.5 MHz, 143 degress west longitude. This is our western-most satellite and is pointed towards Alaska, so most cable companies in the continental U.S. probably won't be able to receive an acceptable signal. The transmission is also in a special format (video and data), which is the reason for tuning to the lower downlink frequency to receive video/audio only and ignore the data. Also, a schedule of all shuttle video activities can be obtained beginning about 3 days prior to launch by calling 713-280-8711 with a computer and modem. Hope this helps. Craig Anderson Xerox Corp. 213-536-7299 ------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------ Date: 23 Aug 1984 17:24:43-EDT From: Hank.Walker at CMU-CS-UNH Subject: Vandenberg delay On NBC last night, some investigators estimated that repairing all of the problems would delay completion of the facility by a year or more. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 23 Aug 84 17:15:49 pdt From: Rick McGeer (on an aaa-60-s) Message-Id: <8408240015.AA23785@ucbkim.ARPA> Phone: (415) 236-8262 To: pur-ee!CS-Mordred!Pucc-H.Physics.els@Berkeley, space@Mit-Mc.ARPA Subject: Re: Illegality of NERVA's??!! Who said anything about nuclear explosions??? NERVA was to use a reactor to have fuel burn, achieving an exhaust temperature much higher than ordinary rockets, thus giving a larger specific impulse. That's why the legality of NERVA is questionable. Project Orion, which does (did?) involve nuclear explosions, is clearly illegal. I understand that the treaty language is sufficiently vague that nuclear reactors, as well as explosions, may be illegal. Rick. ------------------------------ Date: 22 Aug 84 6:19:59-PDT (Wed) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: ihnp4!inuxc!inuxg!rowley @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: Passengers needed to Discovery Launch from Indianapolis or Atlanta NEED PASSENGERS TO DISCOVERY LAUNCH We are planning on renting a plane to fly to Florida from Indianapolis to watch the launch of Discovery. The scheduled departure is Tuesday August 28 and returning the morning of Friday August 31 (we will probably spend a day seeing the sights). The approximate costs will be: round trip air fair ~$160 if 4 people go or 4/3 that if we only 3 people go. (we currently have three people) rental car $30 dollars per day plus 20 cents per mile We also have a viewing area pass that will get us into the viewing area about 2 miles from the pad. we would also consider passengers in the Atlanta or Athens Georgia area and you airfare would be in proportion to your time in the plane (about half). Dave Rowley (317) 845-6377 work (317) 843-1129 home ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 25-Aug-84 0403 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #286 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 286 Today's Topics: British Space Shuttle Working for NASA ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 24 Aug 1984 21:46:30-EDT From: Hank.Walker at CMU-CS-UNH Subject: British Space Shuttle A report on CNN tonight from ITN (private British TV) described a British Aerospace/Rolls Royce plan to build a space shuttle called HOTOL. The fully-reusable shuttle is powered by three liquid-fuel engines, fuel type unspecified. The shuttle would take off horizontally on a tracked sled into a 200mi orbit. The sled's purpose is to support the weight of a fully-fuelled shuttle. Leftover fuel is used to make a rocket-powered runway landing on conventional gear. Has anyone heard anything else about this? The artist's conception was a lifting-body type vehicle. I don't recall any specifics on payload, but my impression is that it is smaller than the US shuttle. The initial design is unmanned. ------------------------------ Date: 22 Aug 84 10:49:24-PDT (Wed) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: ihnp4!houxm!mhuxl!ulysses!burl!clyde!watmath!utzoo!kcarroll @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: Working for NASA * Some time ago, one of the folks who works for NASA posted a description of how to go about applying for work there. If somebody has that article saved away, I'd like to get a copy of it, if possie. Mail would me most appropriate, rather than a newsgroup posting, I think. Many thanks! -Kieran A. Carroll ...decvax!utzoo!kcarroll ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 26-Aug-84 0404 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #287 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 287 Today's Topics: British Space Shuttle Re: Suttle lift off????? Re: Illegality of NERVA's??!! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Saturday, 25 August 1984 11:25:21 EDT From: Hank.Walker@cmu-cs-unh.arpa To: space@mit-mc.arpa Subject: British Space Shuttle Message-ID: <1984.8.25.15.24.35.Hank.Walker@cmu-cs-unh.arpa> A report on CNN tonight from ITN (private British TV) described a British Aerospace/Rolls Royce plan to build a space shuttle called HOTOL. The fully-reusable shuttle is powered by three liquid-fuel engines, fuel type unspecified. The shuttle would take off horizontally on a tracked sled into a 200mi orbit. The sled's purpose is to support the weight of a fully-fuelled shuttle. Leftover fuel is used to make a rocket-powered runway landing on conventional gear. Has anyone heard anything else about this? The artist's conception was a lifting-body type vehicle. I don't recall any specifics on payload, but my impression is that it is smaller than the US shuttle. The initial design is unmanned. ------------------------------ Date: 23 Aug 84 13:25:44-PDT (Thu) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: hplabs!sdcrdcf!sdcsvax!akgua!whuxle!spuxll!abnjh!u1100a!pyuxn!pyuxww!gamma!ulysses!allegra!alice!alb @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: Re: Suttle lift off????? The shuttle is scheduled to lift off on the 29th at 0835 EDT. ------------------------------ Date: 24 Aug 84 14:18:48-PDT (Fri) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: hplabs!hao!seismo!ut-sally!ut-ngp!cmaz504 @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: Re: Illegality of NERVA's??!! If nuclear reactors are illegal in space why do some of the Soviet satellites use them? Wasn't the one that came down in Canada nuclear powered? ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 27-Aug-84 0405 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #288 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 288 Today's Topics: Re: SPACE Digest V4 #287 ELT Re: Illegality of NERVA's??!! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 26 Aug 84 15:37:13 EDT From: Joe Pistritto To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC.ARPA Subject: Re: SPACE Digest V4 #287 Nuclear reactors AREN'T illegal in space, (although discourage, precisely because of Cosmos 957). Nuclear WEAPONS are illegal in space, (actually, all 'weapons of mass destruction' but that's commonly interpreted as nuclear only). -JCP_ ------------------------------ Date: 26 Aug 1984 18:18:43-EDT From: Dale.Amon at CMU-RI-FAS Subject: ELT An ELT is a device to locate an aircraft that has gone down. If an aircraft has been actively identifying it's current position at short intervals, ala Geostar, the primary function of the ELT has been superseded: narrowing the search zone to a reasonably narrow region. Given the accuracy of GEOSTAR (meters) knowledge of location at the moment of impact is solely dependant upon the individual aircraft polling rates. There is no need for the annoyingly failure prone ELT in an aircraft so equiped. And if the standard polling rates aren't fast enough for you, I'll bet that Geostar Corp would be willing to sell you any CEP of impact you are willing to pay for. I think I'd feel quite safe if my 3-d position, direction and velocity were known to within five minutes prior to impact. (median 2.5min or approx 5 mile ground track assuming wind=0 and no drastic course changes during interval) If you don't like my numbers, I'll just increase the polling rate... Also, anyone who has interesting information on the upcoming Discovery launch, experiments, payloads, scheduling, or any any useful trivia I might use on a radio appearance this Wed. Please mail directly, as I may be too busy to check the BB... I have a considerable amount of info, but I figure someone out there knows things I don't about this flight. For example, does anyone know for sure if Walker is going to wear his L5 patch? amon@cmu-ri-fas.arpa ------------------------------ Date: Fri 24 Aug 84 10:40:09-EDT From: Martin J Mahoney Subject: Re: Illegality of NERVA's??!! To: mcgeer%ucbkim@UCB-VAX.ARPA Cc: pur-ee!CS-Mordred!Pucc-H.Physics.els@UCB-VAX.ARPA, space@MIT-MC.ARPA, US.MJM%CU20B@COLUMBIA Nuclear reactors are probably not illegal. Remember a few years back when the Russian satalite crashed in the northern part of Canada, the satalite had a nuclear reactor and it was feared that the fuel would not burn up compleatly on re-entry and it might contanimate its landing zone. At the time it was stated that most of the Russian satalites used nuclear reactors for their power because they do not have the capability to use solar power as the US does. Martin J. Mahoney Columbia University Center for Computing Activities ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 28-Aug-84 0406 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #289 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 289 Today's Topics: Re: Illegality of NERVA's??!! Teacher to be first Shuttle passenger Re: Problems at Vandenberg AFB Re: Suttle lift off????? NERVA/reactors in space VAFB Shuttle watching ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 27 Aug 84 10:03:35 pdt From: Rick McGeer (on an aaa-60-s) Message-Id: <8408271703.AA15531@ucbkim.ARPA> Phone: (415) 236-8262 To: US.MJM%CU20B@COLUMBIA Subject: Re: Illegality of NERVA's??!! Cc: space@MIT-MC.ARPA, pur-ee!CS-Mordred!Pucc-H.Physics.els@Berkeley You are, of course, correct, espescially since it's a point of pride to the Soviets that they've never *explicitly* violated any treaty that they've signed. So why are NERVA's at least dubious? Anybody? Rick. ------------------------------ Date: 27 Aug 84 2336 PDT From: Ron Goldman Subject: Teacher to be first Shuttle passenger To: space@MIT-MC.ARPA n089 1828 27 Aug 84 AM-SHUTTLE-CIVILIAN First ''Citizen-Passenger'' Will Be A Teacher By PHILIP M. BOFFEY c.1984 N.Y. Times News Service WASHINGTON - President Reagan announced on Monday that an elementary or secondary schoolteacher would be chosen as the first ''citizen passenger'' to fly into space aboard the space shuttle. His announcement temporarily dashed the hopes of thousands of other citizens, including artists, writers, journalists, entertainers, celebrities, and students, who have flooded the National Aeronautics and Space Administration in recent years with requests that they be flown into space. But they and others from occupations that lost out this time may yet get their chance. The space agency said it expected to take the teacher aloft in late 1985 or early 1986 and thereafter would fly from two to four private citizens a year on shuttle missions. The citizen passengers are intended to serve as the eyes and ears of the public, observing the wonders of space flight and later communicating what they observe in understandable and more exciting terms than those generally used by astronauts, who are chosen more for technical skills than for communications ability. James M. Beggs, administrator of the space agency, said it had decided to choose an educator because teachers are good communicators, have a life-long effect on their students and can inspire young people to become interested in space, science, and mathematics and to excel. Beggs said his agency was under no political pressure to choose a teacher in this election year when both parties are seeking the support of articulate and organized teachers' groups. He said the agency gave the president several options but ranked educators at the top of the list. While the agency was stressing what teachers could do as communicators for the country, the president, in a speech to teachers and administrators from outstanding secondary schools, was stressing what his space decision would do for the image of teachers. ''It has been a goal of our space shuttle program to some day carry citizen passengers into space,'' he said. ''Until now, we had not decided who the first citizen passenger would be.'' ''But today,'' he added, ''I am directing NASA to begin a search in all of our elementary and secondary schools and to choose, as the first citizen passenger in the history of our space program, one of America's finest: a teacher.'' At the NASA news conference, Beggs said that, as the program matured, passengers would be selected ''from all areas of American life'' and eventually, perhaps, from foreign countries as well. The physical and psychological requirements for the citizen passengers are not expected to be onerous. Beggs said the space shuttle has a ''benign, shirt-sleeved environment'' that ''allows a reasonably healthy person to fly there with nothing more than relatively rudimentary training and the desire to do so.'' The passengers must be free of disease or injury that would interfere with performing the mission, escaping in an emergency, or using the equipment. In addition, they must have vision correctable to 20-40 in their better eye, be able to hear a whispered voice at three feet, although a hearing aid is permissible, and have blood pressure readings of less than 160 over 100, a level that doctors define as moderate hypertension. The competition will be open to anyone teaching full time at the secondary or elementary level in a public, private, or parochial school in the United States, Puerto Rico, Guam, and the outlying American territories, as well as in the Defense Department's overseas schools for dependents. The applicants must be U.S. citizens. The space agency said it would send out an announcement in early October listing the requirements and procedures for applicants. Any applications sent before then will not be accepted. The application period will run from Nov. 1 until Jan. 1. Recorded status reports on the program are available by calling (202) 453-8644. Agency officials said they expected as many as 80,000 applications from among the nation's two million schoolteachers. The applicants will have to submit a proposal describing their qualifications and explain how they would use their experience in space. The applications will go through an initial screening at the space agency and then further screening by panels of educators in each state. Two candidates will be selected from each state or other jurisdiction. The group of more than 100 educators will be winnowed down to 10 by a national panel. The winner and an alternate would ultimately be selected by the agency. The passengers would be expected to go through perhaps eight weeks of training before their flight, at the Johnson Space Center in Texas and the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. On the mission, they will be asked to perform normal housekeeping, including operating the food and hygiene systems and hatches. The educator will probably also be involved in student experiments or other scientific work aboard. But the educator need not be a teacher of science or mathematics. After returning to Earth, the passenger will have to spend a year performing communications and education missions for NASA, just as astronauts now spend substantial time addressing citizen's groups. ''We don't expect them to keep it to themselves,'' said Beggs. ''They'd better be aware they're going to be a hot property for us.'' Beggs said it was the agency's intention to let the individual ''market his experience for profit.'' He said that, once an individual had satisfied obligations to the agency, ''if there are profit opportunities for him, good luck, and God bless him.'' ------------------------------ Date: 26 Aug 84 1:11:13-PDT (Sun) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: hplabs!tektronix!ogcvax!sequent!brian @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: Re: Problems at Vandenberg AFB I understand that a shuttle launch complex is being built at Vandenberg AFB in California. Does anybody know if us West Coasters will be able to go watch the launches from a reasonable distance, or will the military nature of the missions cause the schedules and launches to remain secret? Brian M. Godfrey Sequent Computer Systems !ogcvax!sequent!brian ------------------------------ Date: 27 Aug 84 12:37:42-PDT (Mon) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: hplabs!oliveb!olivee!oliven!hawk @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: Re: Suttle lift off????? How can you call something that makes that much noise "Suttle"? :-) -- rick (Rick Hawkins @ Olivetti ATC) [hplabs|zehntel|fortune|ios|tolerant|allegra|tymix]!oliveb!oliven!hawk ------------------------------ Date: 28 Aug 1984 00:44:15 PDT Subject: NERVA/reactors in space From: Dave Dyer To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC.ARPA Please correct me if I'm wrong, but... I believe that nuclear powered sattelites are powered by short lived isotope decay, which is converted to electricity by thermocouple. Full scale reactors are too big and too heavy for satellites, not to mention too tricky to operate without constant supervision. ...and... The objection to NERVA is that its normal exhaust gas would be radioactive, and that a crash would spread uncounted zillions of curies on the earth below. ------------------------------ Date: 27 Aug 84 10:53:39-PDT (Mon) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: hplabs!tektronix!tekred!normb @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: VAFB Shuttle watching When I worked at VAFB some years ago, the Air Force launched quite a number of "secret" payloads. The nearest town, Lompoc, had a front row seat to most of these, (and also watched a number of interesting destructs), despite the classified nature of the shots. It got to point that the local barmaid could tell you the launch time, window, the pad, etc. Because of the spread out nature of the base, people were starting to climb fences to get a closer look at the fun, and some were getting as close as a mile or so. The Air Force was getting nervous at the thought of someone getting hurt, (and I'm sure the liability angle was also of concern) and as a result, established viewing areas, complete with a sound system. Because of the "progress for peace" nature of the shuttle, I'm sure people will be allowed to watch the launch from these areas. If the the complex is the one we used to call SLC-10, there are off-base ares that are good. If anyone is interested, send a mail item, and I'll provide detailed directions, rather than use net time. ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 29-Aug-84 0405 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #290 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 290 Today's Topics: Teacher to be first Shuttle passenger Re: Illegality of NERVA's??!! Re: Illegality of NERVA's??!! NASA TV SCHEDULE Re: VAFB Shuttle watching SHUTTLE VIDEO ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 28 Aug 1984 10:35 EDT Message-ID: From: OAF%MIT-OZ@MIT-MC.ARPA To: Ron Goldman Cc: space@MIT-MC.ARPA, prog-d%MIT-OZ@MIT-MC.ARPA Subject: Teacher to be first Shuttle passenger How about an ex-air traffic controller instead? After all, those people have demonstrated early loyalty to Reagan, willingness and ability to handle stress, ability to pass regular and exhaustive medical tests, and interest in matters aeronautical and astronautical. Best of all, most of them have time on their hands, with which to study up for the job, courtesy of Mr. Reagan himself. Oded ------------------------------ Message-Id: <8408281644.AA05617@YALE-BULLDOG.YALE.ARPA> Date: Tue, 28 Aug 84 11:10:47 EDT From: John R Ellis Subject: Re: Illegality of NERVA's??!! To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC.ARPA Cc: SPACE@MIT-MC.ARPA From: Rick McGeer (on an aaa-60-s) You are, of course, correct, espescially since it's a point of pride to the Soviets that they've never *explicitly* violated any treaty that they've signed. Sigh. I suppose by your definition the Soviets never "explicitly" violated the Helsinki agreements? ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 28 Aug 84 12:27:08 pdt From: Rick McGeer (on an aaa-60-s) Message-Id: <8408281927.AA29943@ucbkim.ARPA> Phone: (415) 236-8262 To: Ellis@YALE.ARPA, Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC.ARPA Subject: Re: Illegality of NERVA's??!! Cc: SPACE@MIT-MC.ARPA Ahem. I don't like them any better than you do; I never said they never violated the *spirit* of the accords that they sign, merely that their spokesmen have pointed out, ad nauseam, that the Soviet Union has never explicitly, clearly, violated the *letter* of an agreement that they've signed. This is a considerable point of pride with the Soviet government. Rick. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 28 Aug 84 21:05 PDT From: ANDERSON.ES@XEROX.ARPA Subject: NASA TV SCHEDULE To: Space@MIT-MC.ARPA cc: Anderson.ES@XEROX.ARPA ReplyTo: Anderson Following is NASA's TV schedule for the shuttle Discovery's maiden flight. The flight has been postponed again, this time 24 hours, so the launch is now set at 0835 CDT on Thursday, August 30. Since liftoff is still at the same scheduled time, I would assume all other times will remain the same and only the day of each event will be pushed back by one. I would not normally send such a large file (15.6KB) to a distribution list, but it contains much useful information, and I think everyone would be interested in seeing it before liftoff. If I was in error for sending such a large file, I apoligize. Enjoy. Craig Anderson Xerox Corp. 213-536-7299 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 41-D TV PLAN VALID AUG 28 1230Z T1235Z ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ AUGUST 28 CDT GMT T-1 DAY BRIEFINGS ~~~ ~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 08:00 13:00 SBS BRIEFING FROM KSC 08:30 13:30 SYNCOM BRIEFING FROM KSC 09:00 14:00 TELESTAR BRIEFING FROM KSC 09:30 14:30 OAST-1 BRIEFING FROM MSFC 10:00 15:00 CFES BRIEFING FROM KSC 12:30 17:30 PRE-LAUNCH PRESS CONFERENCE FROM KSC ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ LAUNCH DAY (AUGUST 29) CDT GMT MET OPERATION-EVENT-REMARKS RESPONSIBLE ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 01:30 05:30 -0:07:05 CONFIGURE RCA DOMSAT TO SEND GSFC/STDN STDN TV FROM MILA AND BEGIN HOUSTON-TV MILA PRE-PASS STDN STATION VALIDATION. (MIL-JSC) 02:15 06:15 -0:06:20 COMPLETE MILA STDN STATION GSFC/STDN VALIDATION. HOUSTON-TV 03:45 07:45 -0:04:50 BEGIN NASA SELECT TELEVISION KSC-NF-TV PROGRAMMING FROM KSC VIA KSC-CD&SC RCA DOMSAT. 05:00 09:00 -0:03:35 KSC SWITCH NASA SELECT KSC-CD&SC OFF RCA DOMSAT. 05:00 09:00 -0:03:35 BEGIN WEATHER BRIEFING FROM HOUSTON-TV JSC TO KSC VIA RCA DOMSAT. 05:30 09:30 -0:03:05 KSC SWITCH NASA SELECT KSC-CD&SC ONTO RCA DOMSAT. 06:30 10:30 -0:02:05 ACTIVATE AT&T, JSC TO KSC AT&T FOR SUPPORT VIDEO. 07:00 11:00 -0:01:35 BEGIN WEATHER BRIEFING FROM KSC-NF-TV KSC TO JSC VIA RCA DOMSAT. 08:35 12:35 0:00:00 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~ ~~~~ ~~~~ LAUNCH OF 41-D ~~~~ ~~~~ ~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 09:15 13:15 0:00:40 DISCONTINUE NASA SELECT KSC-CD&SC TELEVISION PROGRAMMING FROM KSC VIA RCA DOMSAT. 09:15 13:15 0:00:40 JSC SWITCH NASA SELECT HOUSTON-TV ONTO RCA DOMSAT. 09:20 13:20 0:00:45 BEGIN OTV LAUNCH VIDEO KSC-NF-TV FROM KSC. 09:30 13:30 0:00:55 DISCONTINUE SUPPORT VIDEO AT&T FROM JSC TO KSC VIA AT&T. 10:00 14:00 0:01:25 SCHEDULE OF DAYS TELEVISION JSC-PAO EVENTS 12:15 16:15 0:03:40 JSC SWITCH NASA SELECT OFF HOUSTON-TV OF RCA DOMSAT. NASA SELECT AVAILABLE TO USERS AT JSC. 13:04 17:04 0:04:29 AOS HAWAII FOR DOWNLINK OF HOUSTON-TV TV01 PAYLOAD BAY VIEWS. (ORBIT 4) 13:12 17:12 0:04:37 LOS HAWAII. 13:12 17:12 0:04:37 JSC SWITCH NASA SELECT HOUSTON-TV ONTO RCA DOMSAT. 13:25 17:25 0:04:50 BEGIN 8 MINUTE PLAYBACK JSC-BLDG 8 OF PAYLOAD BAY VIEWS. 14:00 18:00 0:05:25 BEGIN MULTILOCATION CHANGE JSC-PAO OF SHIFT PRESS CONFERENCE. GARY COEN-FLIGHT DIRECTOR 16:05 20:05 0:07:30 JSC SWITCH NASA SELECT OFF HOUSTON-TV RCA DOMSAT. NASA SELECT AVAILABLE TO USERS AT JSC. 16:16 20:16 0:07:41 AOS HAWAII FOR DOWNLINK HOUSTON-TV OF TV03 SBS PRE-DEPLOY ACTIVITIES. (ORBIT 6) 16:24 20:24 0:07:49 LOS HAWAII. 16:24 20:24 0:07:49 JSC SWITCH NASA SELECT HOUSTON-TV ONTO RCA DOMSAT. 16:33 20:33 0:07:58 SBS DEPLOY. (ORBIT 6) -NOT TELEVISED LIVE- 16:40 20:40 0:08:05 BEGIN 8 MINUTE PLAYBACK OF JSC-BLDG 8 SBS PRE-DEPLOY ACTIVITIES. 17:41 21:41 0:09:06 JSC SWITCH NASA SELECT OFF HOUSTON-TV RCA DOMSAT. NASA SELECT AVAILABLE TO USERS AT JSC. 17:52 21:52 0:09:17 AOS HAWAII FOR VTR DUMP OF HOUSTON-TV TV03 SBS DEPLOY. (ORBIT 7) 18:00 22:00 0:09:25 LOS HAWAII. 18:00 22:00 0:09:25 JSC SWITCH NASA SELECT HOUSTON-TV ONTO RCA DOMSAT. 18:10 22:10 0:09:35 BEGIN 8 MINUTE PLAYBACK JSC-BLDG 8 OF SBS DEPLOY. 20:35 00:35 0:12:00 BEGIN CREW SLEEP PERIOD. 21:00 01:00 0:12:25 BEGIN MULTILOCATION CHANGE JSC-PAO OF SHIFT PRESS CONFERENCE. JOHN COX-FLIGHT DIRECTOR 22:00 02:00 0:13:25 JSC SWITCH NASA SELECT OFF HOUSTON-TV OF RCA DOMSAT. NASA SELECT AVAILABLE TO USERS AT JSC. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ AUGUST 30 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 03:30 08:30 0:19:55 JSC SWITCH NASA SELECT HOUSTON-TV ONTO RCA DOMSAT. 03:35 08:35 0:20:00 CREW WAKE UP. 04:00 09:00 0:20:25 BEGIN MULTILOCATION CHANGE JSC-PAO OF SHIFT PRESS CONFERENCE. ALAN BRISCOE-FLIGHT DIRECTOR 05:00 10:00 0:21:25 SCHEDULE OF DAYS TELEVISION JSC-PAO EVENTS 05:27 10:27 0:21:52 JSC SWITCH NASA SELECT OFF HOUSTON-TV RCA DOMSAT. NASA SELECT AVAILABLE TO USERS AT JSC. 07:43 12:43 1:00:08 AOS MILA FOR DOWNLINK OF HOUSTON-TV TV03 SYNCOM IV PRE-DEPLOY ACTIVITIES. (ORBIT 17) 07:53 12:53 1:00:18 LOS MILA. 07:53 12:53 1:00:18 JSC SWITCH NASA SELECT HOUSTON-TV ONTO RCA DOMSAT. 08:07 13:07 1:00:32 SYNCOM IV DEPLOY (ORBIT 17) -NOT TELEVISED LIVE- 08:15 13:15 1:00:40 BEGIN 10 MINUTE PLAYBACK JSC-BLDG 8 OF SYNCOM IV PRE-DEPLOY. 09:02 14:02 1:01:27 JSC SWITCH NASA SELECT OFF HOUSTON-TV OF RCA DOMSAT. NASA SELECT AVAILABLE TO USERS AT JSC. 09:12 14:12 1:01:37 AOS GOLDSTONE FOR VTR DUMP OF HOUSTON-TV TV03 SYNCOM IV DEPLOY. (ORbIT 18) 09:19 14:19 1:01:44 LOS GOLDSTONE. 09:19 14:19 1:01:44 JSC SWITCH NASA SELECT HOUSTON-TV ONTO RCA DOMSAT. 09:30 14:30 1:01:55 BEGIN 7 MINUTE PLAYBACK JSC-BLDG 8 OF SYNCOM DEPLOY. 12:00 17:00 1:04:25 BEGIN MULTILOCATION CHANGE JSC-PAO OF SHIFT PRESS CONFERENCE. RANDY STONE-FLIGHT DIRECTOR 13:39 18:39 1:06:04 JSC SWITCH NASA SELECT OFF HOUSTON-TV RCA DOMSAT. NASA SELECT AVAILABLE TO USERS AT JSC. 13:50 18:50 1:06:15 AOS HAWAII FOR VTR DUMP OF HOUSTON-TV TV05 OAST VTR CHECKOUT. (ORBIT 21) 13:58 18:58 1:06:23 LOS HAWAII. 13:58 18:58 1:06:23 JSC SWITCH NASA SELECT HOUSTON-TV ONTO RCA DOMSAT. 14:10 19:10 1:06:35 BEGIN 8 MINUTE PLAYBACK JSC-BLDG 8 OF OAST VTR CHECKOUT. 19:35 00:35 1:12:00 BEGIN CREW SLEEP PERIOD. 20:00 01:00 1:12:25 BEGIN MULTILOCATION CHANGE JSC-PAO OF SHIFT PRESS CONFERENCE. JOHN COX-FLIGHT DIRECTOR 21:00 02:00 1:13:25 JSC SWITCH NASA SELECT OFF HOUSTON-TV RCA DOMSAT. NASA SELECT AVAILABLE TO USERS AT JSC. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ AUGUST 31 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 03:00 08:00 1:19:25 JSC SWITCH NASA SELECT HOUSTON-TV ONTO RCA DOMSAT. 03:35 08:35 1:20:00 CREW WAKE UP. 04:00 09:00 1:20:25 BEGIN MULTILOCATION CHANGE JSC-PAO OF SHIFT PRESS CONFERENCE. ALAN BRISCOE-FLIGHT DIRECTOR 06:00 11:00 1:22:25 SCHEDULE OF DAYS TELEVISION JSC-PAO EVENTS 07:10 12:10 1:23:35 JSC SWITCH NASA SELECT OFF HOUSTON-TV RCA DOMSAT. NASA SELECT AVAILABLE TO USERS AT JSC. 07:55 12:55 2:00:20 AOS MILA FOR DOWNLINK OF HOUSTON-TV TV03 TELSTAR PRE-DEPLOY ACTIVITIES. (ORBIT 33) 08:05 13:05 2:00:30 LOS MILA. 08:05 13:05 2:00:30 JSC SWITCH NASA SELECT HOUSTON-TV ONTO RCA DOMSAT. 08:17 13:17 2:00:42 TELSTAR DEPLOY (ORBIT 33) -NOT TELEVISED LIVE- 08:25 13:25 2:00:50 BEGIN 10 MINUTE PLAYBACK OF JSC-BLDG 8 TELSTAR PRE-DEPLOY ACTIVITIES. 08:38 13:38 2:01:03 JSC SWITCH NASA SELECT OFF HOUSTON-TV RCA DOMSAT. NASA SELECT AVAILABLE TO USERS AT JSC. 09:24 14:24 2:01:49 AOS GOLDSTONE FOR VTR DUMP OF HOUSTON-TV TV03 TELSTAR DEPLOY. (ORBIT 34) 09:31 14:31 2:01:56 LOS GOLDSTONE. 09:31 14:31 2:01:56 AOS MILA FOR VTR DUMP OF HOUSTON-TV TV03 TELSTAR DEPLOY. (ORBIT 34) (30 SECOND KEYHOLE) 09:40 14:40 2:02:05 LOS MILA. 09:40 14:40 2:02:05 JSC SWITCH NASA SELECT HOUSTON-TV ONTO RCA DOMSAT. 09:50 14:50 2:02:15 BEGIN 15 MINUTE PLAYBACK JSC-BLDG 8 OF TELSTAR DEPLOY. 10:15 15:15 2:02:40 JSC SWITCH NASA SELECT OFF HOUSTON-TV RCA DOMSAT. NASA SELECT AVAILABLE TO USERS AT JSC. 10:15 15:15 2:02:40 MSFC SWITCH NASA SELECT MSFC-TV ONTO RCA DOMSAT. 10:15 15:15 2:02:40 HOSC OPERATIONS FROM MSFC. MSFC-TV (OCCURING FOR 5 MINUTES BETWEEN MET 2:02:40 AND 2:03:00) 10:35 15:35 2:03:00 MSFC SWITCH NASA SELECT MSFC-TV OFF RCA DOMSAT. 10:35 15:35 2:03:00 JSC SWITCH NASA SELECT HOUSTON-TV ONTO RCA DOMSAT. 11:30 16:30 2:03:55 BEGIN MULTILOCATION CHANGE JSC-PAO OF SHIFT PRESS CONFERENCE. RANDY STONE-FLIGHT DIRECTOR 11:55 16:55 2:04:20 JSC SWITCH NASA SELECT OFF HOUSTON-TV OF RCA DOMSAT. NASA SELECT AVAILABLE TO USERS AT JSC. 12:25 17:25 2:04:50 AOS HAWAII FOR DOWNLINK OF HOUSTON-TV TV06 OAST OPERATIONS (FIRST EXTENSION). (ORBIT 36) 12:33 17:33 2:04:58 LOS HAWAII. 12:33 17:33 2:04:58 JSC SWITCH NASA SELECT HOUSTON-TV ONTO RCA DOMSAT. 12:45 17:45 2:05:10 BEGIN 8 MINUTE PLAYBACK JSC-BLDG 8 OF OAST OPERATIONS. 18:05 23:05 2:10:30 BEGIN CREW SLEEP PERIOD. 19:00 00:00 2:11:25 BEGIN MULTILOCATION CHANGE JSC-PAO OF SHIFT PRESS CONFERENCE. JOHN COX-FLIGHT DIRECTOR 20:00 01:00 2:12:25 JSC SWITCH NASA SELECT OFF HOUSTON-TV OF RCA DOMSAT. NASA SELECT AVAILABLE TO USERS AT JSC. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ SEPTEMBER 1 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 02:00 07:00 2:18:25 JSC SWITCH NASA SELECT HOUSTON-TV ONTO RCA DOMSAT. 02:05 07:05 2:18:30 CREW WAKE UP. 03:00 08:00 2:19:25 BEGIN MULTILOCATION CHANGE JSC-PAO OF SHIFT PRESS CONFERENCE. ALAN BRISCOE-FLIGHT DIRECTOR 03:30 08:30 2:19:55 SCHEDULE OF DAYS TELEVISION JSC-PAO EVENTS 03:55 08:55 2:20:20 JSC SWITCH NASA SELECT OFF HOUSTON-TV RCA DOMSAT. NASA SELECT AVAILABLE TO USERS AT JSC. 05:00 10:00 2:21:25 SCHEDULE OF DAYS TELEVISION JSC-PAO EVENTS 06:12 11:12 2:22:37 AOS HAWAII FOR DOWNLINK OF HOUSTON-TV TV06 OAST OPERATIONS. (PERF TEST-ORBIT 48) 06:16 11:16 2:22:41 LOS HAWAII. 06:21 11:21 2:22:46 AOS GOLDSTONE FOR DOWNLINK OF HOUSTON-TV TV06 OAST OPERATIONS. (PERF TEST-ORBIT 48) (30 SEC KEYHOLE) 06:25 11:25 2:22:50 LOS GOLDSTONE. 06:27 11:27 2:22:52 AOS MILA FOR DOWNLINK OF HOUSTON-TV TV06 OAST OPERATIONS. (PERF TEST-ORBJSC-BLDG 8 OF OAST OPERATIONS. 06:36 11:36 2:23:01 LOS MILA. 06:36 11:36 2:23:01 JSC SWITCH NASA SELECT HOUSTON-TV ONTO RCA DOMSAT. 11:00 16:00 3:03:25 BEGIN MULTILOCATION CHANGE JSC-PAO OF SHIFT PRESS CONFERENCE. RANDY STONE-FLIGHT DIRECTOR 17:35 22:35 3:10:00 BEGIN CREW SLEEP PERIOD. 19:00 00:00 3:11:25 BEGIN MULTILOCATION CHANGE JSC-PAO OF SHIFT PRESS CONFERENCE. JOHN COX-FLIGHT DIRECTOR 20:00 01:00 3:12:25 JSC SWITCH NASA SELECT OFF HOUSTON-TV OF RCA DOMSAT. NASA SELECT AVAILABLE TO USERS AT JSC. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ SEPTEMBER 2 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 01:00 06:00 3:17:25 JSC SWITCH NASA SELECT HOUSTON-TV ONTO RCA DOMSAT. 01:35 06:35 3:18:00 CREW WAKE UP. 03:00 08:00 3:19:25 BEGIN MULTILOCATION CHANGE JSC-PAO OF SHIFT PRESS CONFERENCE. ALAN BRISCOE-FLIGHT DIRECTOR 06:00 11:00 3:22:25 SCHEDULE OF DAYS TELEVISION JSC-PAO EVENTS 06:45 11:45 3:23:10 JSC SWITCH NASA SELECT OFF HOUSTON-TV RCA DOMSAT. NASA SELECT AVAILABLE TO USERS AT JSC. 08:15 13:15 4:00:40 JSC SWITCH NASA SELECT HOUSTON-TV MULTILOCATION CHANGE JSC-PAO OF SHIFT PRESS CONFERENCE. RANDY STONE-FLIGHT DIRECTOR 10:00 15:00 4:02:25 BEGIN MULTILOCATION CHANGE JSC-PAO OF SHIFT PRESS CONFERENCE. RANDY STONE-FLIGHT DIRECTOR 12:00 17:00 4:04:25 JSC SWITCH NASA SELECT OFF HOUSTON-TV OF RCA DOMSAT. NASA SELECT AVAILABLE TO USERS AT JSC. 12:40 17:40 4:05:05 AOS HAWAII FOR VTR DUMP OF HOUSTON-TV TV08 CFES OPERATIONS. (ORBIT 68) 12:48 17:48 4:05:13 LOS HAWAII. 12:48 17:48 4:05:13 JSC SWITCH NASA SELECT HOUSTON-TV ONTO RCA DOMSAT. 13:00 18:00 4:05:25 BEGIN 8 MINUTE PLAYBACK JSC-BLDG 8 OF CFES OPERATIONS. 13:30 18:30 4:05:55 41-G CREW PRESS CONFERENCE JSC-PAO FROM JSC. 16:35 21:35 4:09:00 BEGIN CREW SLEEP PERIOD. 17:00 22:00 4:09:25 BEGIN MULTILOCATION CHANGE JSC-PAO OF SHIFT PRESS CONFERENCE. JOHN COX-FLIGHT DIRECTOR 18:00 23:00 4:10:25 JSC SWITCH NASA SELECT OFF HOUSTON-TV OF RCA DOMSAT. NASA SELECT AVAILABLE TO USERS AT JSC. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ SEPTEMBER 3 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 00:00 05:00 4:16:25 JSC SWITCH NASA SELECT HOUSTON-TV ONTO RCA DOMSAT. 00:35 05:35 4:17:00 CREW WAKE UP. 01:00 06:00 4:17:25 BEGIN MULTILOCATION CHANGE JSC-PAO OF SHIFT PRESS CONFERENCE. ALAN BRISCOE-FLIGHT DIRECTOR 03:00 08:00 4:19:25 SCHEDULE OF DAYS TELEVISION JSC-PAO EVENTS 03:35 08:35 4:20:00 JSC SWITCH NASA SELECT OFF HOUSTON-TV RCA DOMSAT. NASA SELECT AVAILABLE TO USERS AT JSC. 04:30 09:30 4:20:55 SCHEDULE OF DAYS TELEVISION JSC-PAO EVENTS 05:06 10:06 4:21:31 AOS MILA FOR VTR DUMP OF HOUSTON-TV TV15 STUDENT EXPERIMENT. (ORBIT 79) 05:14 10:14 4:21:39 LOS MILA. 05:14 10:14 4:21:39 JSC SWITCH NASA SELECT HOUSTON-TV ONTO RCA DOMSAT. 05:25 10:25 4:21:50 BEGIN 8 MINUTE PLAYBACK JSC-BLDG 8 OF STUDENT EXPERIMENT. 05:38 10:38 4:22:03 JSC SWITCH NASA SELECT OFF HOUSTON-TV RCA DOMSAT. NASA SELECT AVAILABLE TO USERS AT JSC. 06:23 11:23 4:22:48 AOS HAWAII FOR DOWNLINK OF HOUSTON-TV TV13 CREW PRESS CONFERENCE. (ORBIT 80) 06:31 11:31 4:22:56 LOS HAWAII. 06:34 11:34 4:22:59 AOS GOLDSTONE FOR DOWNLINK OF HOUSTON-TV TV13 CREW PRESS CONFERENCE. (ORBIT 80) (30 SEC KEYHOLE) 06:40 11:40 4:23:05 LOS GOLDSTONE. 06:41 11:41 4:23:06 AOS MILA FOR DOWNLINK OF HOUSTON-TV TV13 CREW PRESS CONFERENCE. (ORBIT 80) 06:51 11:51 4:23:16 LOS MILA. 06:51 11:51 4:23:16 JSC SWITCH NASA SELECT HOUSTON-TV ONTO RCA DOMSAT. 07:00 12:00 4:23:25 BEGIN 23 MINUTE PLAYBACK JSC-BLDG 8 OF CREW PRESS CONFERENCE. 09:00 14:00 5:01:25 BEGIN MULTILOCATION CHANGE JSC-PAO OF SHIFT PRESS CONFERENCE. RANDY STONE-FLIGHT DIRECTOR 16:35 21:35 5:09:00 BEGIN CREW SLEEP PERIOD. 17:00 22:00 5:09:25 BEGIN MULTILOCATION CHANGE JSC-PAO OF SHIFT PRESS CONFERENCE. JOHN COX-FLIGHT DIRECTOR 18:00 23:00 5:10:25 JSC SWITCH NASA SELECT OFF HOUSTON-TV OF RCA DOMSAT. NASA SELECT AVAILABLE TO USERS AT JSC. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ LANDING DAY (SEPTEMBER 4) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 22:30 05:30 5:16:55 JSC SWITCH NASA SELECT HOUSTON-TV ONTO RCA DOMSAT. 22:35 05:35 5:17:00 CREW WAKE UP. 23:30 06:30 5:17:55 BEGIN MULTILOCATION CHANGE JSC-PAO OF SHIFT PRESS CONFERENCE. ALAN BRISCOE-FLIGHT DIRECTOR 04:00 11:00 5:22:25 SCHEDULE OF DAYS TELEVISION JSC-PAO EVENTS 04:30 11:30 5:22:55 ACTIVATE AT&T, JSC TO DFRF AT&T FOR SUPPORT VIDEO. 05:30 12:30 5:23:55 JSC SWITCH NASA SELECT OFF HOUSTON-TV OF RCA DOMSAT. NASA SELECT AVAILABLE TO USERS AT JSC. 05:30 12:30 5:23:55 BEGIN NASA SELECT TELEVISION DRYDEN-TV PROGRAMMING FROM DFRF VIA RCA DOMSAT. 06:34 13:34 6:00:59 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~ LANDING ~~~~ ~~~~ OF ~~~~ ~~~~ 41-D ~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 07:30 14:30 6:01:55 DISCONTINUE SUPPORT VIDEO AT&T FROM JSC TO DFRF VIA AT&T. 07:35 14:35 6:02:00 POST LANDING BRIEFING. DFRF-PAO 09:00 16:00 6:03:25 TERMINATE NASA SELECT DRYDEN-TV PROGRAMMING FROM DFRF VIA RCA DOMSAT. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ LANDING +1 (SEPTEMBER 5) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 09:30 16:30 BEGIN NASA SELECT TELEVISION DRYDEN-TV PROGRAMMING FROM DFRF VIA RCA DOMSAT. 10:00 17:00 ORBITER STATUS BRIEFING DRYDEN-TV FROM DFRF. 11:00 18:00 TERMINATE NASA SELECT DRYDEN-TV TELEVISION PROGRAMMING FROM DFRF VIA RCA DOMSAT. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 28 Aug 84 21:22 PDT From: ANDERSON.ES@XEROX.ARPA Subject: Re: VAFB Shuttle watching To: hplabs!tektronix!tekred!normb@UCB-VAX.ARPA cc: space@MIT-MC.ARPA I'm interested in your information regarding the VAFB launches. Thanks. Craig Anderson Xerox Corp. 213-536-7299 ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 28 Aug 84 21:34 PDT From: ANDERSON.ES@XEROX.ARPA Subject: SHUTTLE VIDEO To: Space@MIT-MC.ARPA cc: Anderson.ES@XEROX.ARPA ReplyTo: Anderson For those people living in Southern California, Century Cable will be broadcasting the Discovery video on local access cable channel 3 from 5 P.M. until 6 A.M. PDT each day of the mission. Craig Anderson Xerox Corp. 213-536-7299 ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 30-Aug-84 0406 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #291 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 291 Today's Topics: Seeing launches from the West Coast Re: Re: Shuttle Satellite Broadcasts Query: TV Coverage Of Shuttle in SF Bay Area? Soviet ocean surveillance pointer to NASA ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 28 Aug 84 9:27:38-PDT (Tue) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: hplabs!ames!eugene @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: Seeing launches from the West Coast [leq: "Can he make it? You bet he can Mr. President!!.." Buck Turgidson] In response to the question on visibility of launches, I can give three perspectives. 1) When I was a kid growing up in Los Angeles (over 100 air miles from the Western Launch Site at VAFB) I can remember seeing numerous evening Minuteman launches: contrails, ascending booster flame, and that funny circular cloud associated with the cover blowing off the silo: most impressive at sunset (lasted 15 minutes [cloud that is]). So, the sunset launches of the shuttle will be quite impressive. 2) Later, I helped launch a satellite at VAFB (A civilian oceanography satellite). Normally civilians are not allowed at any launch at VAFB. There might be exceptions in the near future, there were in the past. You can get to within 3 miles of some launch pads. 3) I took the Coast train back to Santa Barbara (My old alma mater.) recently. The train goes right past the Shuttle launch pad, not 500 yards or so. You can see it any time. The area is surrounded by steep slopes, not conducive to spectators (probably due to crowding of other launch sites at VAFB). I wondering about the day, I might take the train and ride pass the Shuttle. The train may become a new Shuttle viewing attraction. I have heard the best way to watch the Shuttle is from a private plane outside the restricted zone. --eugene miya NASA Ames Res. Ctr. ------------------------------ Date: 21 Aug 84 22:32:00-PDT (Tue) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: hplabs!hp-pcd!hpfcla!ajs @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: Re: Re: Shuttle Satellite Broadcasts > Also, a schedule of all shuttle video activities can be obtained > beginning about 3 days prior to launch by calling 713-280-8711 with a > computer and modem. Hope this helps. Good stuff! I tried it and got more than I expected. You should mention, though, that before you dial, you must set your terminal to 300 baud (at least, I had to), and you might want to turn on hard copy, save-to-file, or whatever, before connecting. What kind agency is the provider of this provender? Alan Silverstein ------------------------------ Date: 29-Aug-84 10:19 PDT From: William Daul - Augmentation Systems Div. - McDnD Subject: Query: TV Coverage Of Shuttle in SF Bay Area? To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC.ARPA Message-ID: <[OFFICE-2.ARPA]TYM-WBD-5C1LJ> Does anyone know if any cable companies will be covering the NASA TV Shuttle broadcasts in the San Francisco Bay Area? Thanks, --Bi<< ------------------------------ Date: 28 Aug 1984 2339-PDT From: LEE at SU-STAR Subject: Soviet ocean surveillance To: SPACE%MIT-MC at SCORE Reply-To: LEE at SU-STAR The Soviets certainly have a solar array power technology comparable to that of the US. It would seem that the motivation for using nuclear power is their payload. The use of radar, in which they lag several years behind the Western state of the art, probably imposes size and power requirements of a serious nature on these satellites. The array surface needed to supply power in the multi-Kw range probably results in bad ballistic coefficients. At their low orbit (174X162 st. miles) this means high decay rates. Why launch a new satellite every week when you can get a 60-70 day useful life out of them by just replacing the "wings" with RTG's? (NOT fission reactors as some members of the media claim!) This series of RORSats ( of which the infamous Cosmos 954 was a member) are typically of roughly cylindrical configuration, about 14 meters in length and 2 meters in diameter. The RTG unit occupies 6 m of its length and allows the radar sensor to have enough power to locate ships in any weather conditions. Note that those Soviet reconaissance satellites which operate in higher orbits usually are powered by solar arrays. Emilio P. Calius Stanford U. ------------------------------ Date: 28 Aug 84 11:12:10-PDT (Tue) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: decvax!ittvax!wxlvax!martin @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: pointer to NASA In the past, I have seen addresses where one could write to NASA to obtain a catalog of photographs taken on the space missions. I would like to send for a catalog, but can no longer find the address. Can anyone help me? Thanks. John Martin ...!decvax!ittvax!wxlvax!martin ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 31-Aug-84 0406 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #292 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 292 Today's Topics: Soviet Nuclear Powered Radar Satellites Discovery Launched NASA TV SCHEDULE NASA photo availability Jobs at NASA Space Toilets Re: NASA Broadcasts on CATV Re: Very Cheap Solar Cells ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 30 Aug 84 07:57:11 EDT From: DIETZ@RUTGERS.ARPA Subject: Soviet Nuclear Powered Radar Satellites To: space@MIT-MC.ARPA Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought th Soviet nuclear radar satellites use a nuclear reactor fueled with pure U-235, generating electricity by thermionic emission. Doesn't the US have a (dormant) SNAP reactor in earth orbit? ------------------------------ Date: 30 Aug 84 10:24:48 PDT (Thu) To: space@mit-mc Subject: Discovery Launched From: "Tim Shimeall" Discovery launched beautifully this morning. ABC and CBS didn't provide much (if any) real-time coverage of the launch, but NBC was pretty good. Bryant Gumble got a few points in my book when he said "Let's quit talking now and listen. [To the NASA commentary]" and then kept quite until after the SRB seperation. Tim ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 30 Aug 84 13:38 PDT From: ANDERSON.ES@XEROX.ARPA Subject: NASA TV SCHEDULE To: Space@MIT-MC.ARPA cc: Anderson.ES@XEROX.ARPA ReplyTo: Anderson Following is an updated schedule of Discovery's first day of activities. I've listed only the major events. Most of these events are televised live by CNN or can be monitored on 2 meter radio if rebroadcasted in your area. Craig Anderson Xerox Corp. 213-536-7299 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 41-D TV PLAN VALID AUG 30 1309Z T1242Z ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ LAUNCH DAY (AUGUST 30) EDT GMT MET OPERATION-EVENT-REMARKS RESPONSIBLE ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 08:42 12:42 0:00:00 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~ ~~~~ ~~~~ LAUNCH OF 41-D ~~~~ ~~~~ ~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 13:11 17:11 0:04:29 AOS HAWAII FOR DOWNLINK OF HOUSTON-TV TV01 PAYLOAD BAY VIEWS. (ORBIT 4) 13:19 17:19 0:04:37 LOS HAWAII. 13:32 17:32 0:04:50 BEGIN 8 MINUTE PLAYBACK JSC-BLDG 8 OF PAYLOAD BAY VIEWS. 14:00 18:00 0:05:18 BEGIN MULTILOCATION CHANGE JSC-PAO OF SHIFT PRESS CONFERENCE. GARY COEN-FLIGHT DIRECTOR 16:23 20:23 0:07:41 AOS HAWAII FOR DOWNLINK HOUSTON-TV OF TV03 SBS PRE-DEPLOY ACTIVITIES. (ORBIT 6) 16:31 20:31 0:07:49 LOS HAWAII. 16:40 20:40 0:07:58 SBS DEPLOY. (ORBIT 6) -NOT TELEVISED LIVE- 16:47 20:47 0:08:05 BEGIN 8 MINUTE PLAYBACK OF JSC-BLDG 8 SBS PRE-DEPLOY ACTIVITIES. 17:59 21:59 0:09:17 AOS HAWAII FOR VTR DUMP OF HOUSTON-TV TV03 SBS DEPLOY. (ORBIT 7) 18:07 22:07 0:09:25 LOS HAWAII. 18:17 22:17 0:09:35 BEGIN 8 MINUTE PLAYBACK JSC-BLDG 8 OF SBS DEPLOY. 20:42 00:42 0:12:00 BEGIN CREW SLEEP PERIOD. 21:00 01:00 0:12:18 BEGIN MULTILOCATION CHANGE JSC-PAO OF SHIFT PRESS CONFERENCE. JOHN COX-FLIGHT DIRECTOR ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ END OF MESSAGE ------------------------------ Date: 30 Aug 84 10:43:18-PDT (Thu) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: hplabs!hao!ames!eugene @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: NASA photo availability [leq: "Where's my sonic screwdriver?"] You can get photos from NASA, depending on what you want and need. If you just want PR photos, you can write to any NASA Center and the PR people will dump tons of stuff, brochures, etc. [I did it in 10th grade]. If you need specific images, depending on your purpose and form..... pick up the phone book and call around: NASA Goddard Space Center, Greenbelt, MD Unmanned earth missions Jet Propulsion Lab/Caltech, Pasadena, CA Unmanned deep space mission NASA Johnson Space Center, Houston, TX Manned missions NASA Marshall Space Center, Huntsville, AL Manned missions Specific missions require you contact the people involved. If you want Landsat images, in machine readable form, you should contact the EROS data Center, tapes will cost you. Deep Space data can be obtained from the Regional Planetary Data Center at JPL. I know of several university institutes like the one at Brown. At our Center (Ames), we have a photo archive which people can paw thru (Too many photos, I went thru it recently for work purposes). --eugene miya NASA ------------------------------ Date: 27 Aug 84 12:14:12-PDT (Mon) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: decvax!genrad!grkermit!masscomp!bonnie!clyde!watmath!utzoo!kcarroll @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: Jobs at NASA * I'd like to thank everyone that sent me the back-articles concerning how to go about applying to NASA for jobs. I have about 3 or of these articles saved away myself, now; if anybody else would like this information, le me know, and I'll mail you a copy. -Kieran A. Carroll ...decvax!utzoo!kcarroll ------------------------------ Date: 29 Aug 84 11:31:24-PDT (Wed) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: hplabs!tektronix!uw-beaver!cornell!vax135!petsd!petfe!gmv @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: Space Toilets <> I'l fairly new to the net, so forgive me if this has been asked before, but with all the noise about malfunctions on the STS, the toilet seems to be THE component that fails most often. All this noise has piqued my curiosity. HOW does one handle certain, ahem, bodily functions in space? I would think that lack of gravity would pose some interesting problems, since you-know-what DOESN'T flow downhill in space. Also, what do the astronauts do when the toilet breaks? Does having 'the right stuff' include the ability to 'hold it' for 2 million miles (egads! remember all those l-o-n-g car trips as a kid? :-))? (Note for the fainthearted: if you feel the responses to the above would not constitute family viewing on the net, skip any articles that refer to the dreaded killer Space Toilet). ----- George Verbosh, Perkin-Elmer, 106 Apple St., Tinton Falls, NJ 07724 ...{vax135, pesnta}!petsd!petfe!gmv ------------------------------ Date: 29 Aug 84 11:07:29-PDT (Wed) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: hplabs!tektronix!uw-beaver!cornell!vax135!petsd!petfe!gmv @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: Re: NASA Broadcasts on CATV <> Based upon some exposure I had about 4 years ago, the video channel for the shuttle missions is indeed 1/2 width and is carried on one of the RCA SATCOM's. SATCOM is the carrier for HBO, SHOWTIME et al. and should be accessible to your local cable company (if they have the proper down-converter). I don't know what it takes to convert from 1/2 channel to the NTSC video the CATV company feeds into the system. I'd sure like to see my CATV carry shuttle video/audio (my wife isn't so sure). -------- George Verbosh, Perkin-Elmer, 106 Apple St., Tinton Falls, NJ 07724 ...{vax135, pesnta}!petsd!petfe!gmv ------------------------------ Date: 17 Sep 84 5:11:18-EDT (Mon) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: hplabs!tektronix!uw-beaver!cornell!vax135!ukc!qtlon!istbt!andy @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: Re: Very Cheap Solar Cells [everyone else seems to be wary...] hutch@shark.UUCP writes: > Has anyone looked into organic solar collection? Plants do a real > fine job of collecting and storing solar energy; does anyone know > how efficient they are (not 100% by any means, since they are usually > sensitive in a fairly narrow bandwidth of yellow-green) ?? > > An organic compound engineered to translate sunlight into ATP and > another that turned ATP into electricity would be an interesting > way to power a car. . . What colour are your plants in Oregon Hutch? Ours are green and yellow because they DO NOT absorb green and yellow light. You must have an interesting garden! The majority of the spectrum is absorbed except those wavelengths around 550 nm (green), 600 nm and 640 nm (yellow). However the efficiency is not great (I'm not sure of the exact figure). Photosynthesis is a two-stage process; the light stage is the photo-chemical reaction with sunlight that splits water and provides the free hydrogen for the second (dark) stage to turn into carbohydrates. The first stage produces ATP anyway to power the second stage (nature did the engineering already!). The light stage produces faster than the dark stage can cope with so periods of darkness are actually beneficial to the process. However, a problem with the utilisation of this process is its extreme sensitivity to temperature and the fact that because enzymes are involved any temperatures above about 40 Centigrade will kill it due to protein denaturing. Andy Greener Imperial Software Technology London, England ...!vax135!ukc!qtlon!ist!andy ...!vax135!ukc!qtlon!ist!istbt!andy ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 01-Sep-84 0403 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #293 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 293 Today's Topics: VAFB Shuttle Launch US backing out of rescue satellite project? Re: Space Toilets Discovery's 1st stage performance low? Re: Discovery's 1st stage performance low? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 30 Aug 84 12:17:38-PDT (Thu) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: hplabs!tektronix!tekred!normb @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: VAFB Shuttle Launch Since offering to provide some info about viewing areas re the shuttle launch from VAFB, I've received so many requests via mail that I'll respond here. I called NASA at VAFB (surprised my 10 year old number was still valid) and was informed that the AF will not open the on-base viewing areas to the public. They also plan to close some roads leading to the base. That hardly seemed fair, so I called the Lompoc mayor's office. Lompoc plans to provide viewing areas at Ken Adams Park on the edge of town. Bear in mind that Lompoc has a population of about 30k, and is located in a small valley adjacent to VAFB. People will be able to see the launch quite well, except for the first 30 seconds or so. Should shake the area a'bunch, if the launches of the TAT (Thrust Assisted Thor) are any indication. If you plan to attend, bear in mind that these towns are fairly small, and have limited accommodations. In terms of range from VAFB, Lompoc is closest (about 6 miles from the pad), than Buellton/Solvang (15 miles), Santa Maria(25-28 miles), Santa Barbara(~50), San Luis Obispo(~60 miles). Lompoc and Santa Maria will fill up fast with launch and press personnel. I'd shoot for Santa Barbara. Better access to Lompoc, good road, etc. Someone suggested a private plane, which is a good idea, except the ocean approach will be restricted. The train, which someone pointed out, goes right past the launch areas, however the launch will be scheduled around the train schedule, or they will hold the train. If you're really sneaky, submit an application to any of the companies on base, and schedule your interview for launch day. You can bet that the personnel folks will be watching the launch, and from a good vantage point. Norm @ Tek/Redmond ------------------------------ Date: 31 Aug 84 1333 PDT From: Ross Finlayson Subject: US backing out of rescue satellite project? To: space@MIT-MC.ARPA n013 0707 31 Aug 84 BC-RESCUE By PHILIP M. BOFFEY c.1984 N.Y. Times News Service WASHINGTON - The Reagan Administration's budget office is trying to cut in half the American commitment to an international satellite rescue program. The program uses American and Soviet satellites to carry French and Canadian equipment that can pick up distress calls from planes, ships, or marooned explorers. It has resulted in the saving of 247 lives in two years. The future of the program, thus far deemed experimental, is to be discussed at a meeting in Leningrad in October, leading to intense behind-the-scenes jockeying among American agencies to determine what the government's negotiating posture will be. David A. Stockman, director of the Office of Management and Budget, has recently urged Commerce Secretary Malcolm Baldrige to commit only one American weather satellite to the rescue program instead of two. Stockman's request, conveyed in a July 26 letter that has just become public, expresses no antipathy toward the rescue program itself but notes that the administration has been trying for years to get rid of one of its two polar-orbiting weather satellites to save money. Those provide the best coverage of the earth's surface. The plan is meeting strong resistance in the Commerce Department, the Air Force, and other agencies concerned that the rescue program would be harmed and that an American cutback would allow the Soviet Union, which currently supplies three satellites to the program, to reap a propaganda victory. Rep. James H. Scheuer, D-N.Y., who chairs the House Science subcommittee with jurisdiction over weather satellites, charged today that ''the inflexible position of OMB not only compromises the lives and safety of Americans but also jeopardizes the reliability of our commitments to our allies.'' The stiffest opposition appears to be emerging from elements of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the Commerce Department agency responsible for weather satellites. In a background paper, NOAA warned that if the United States cut its participation, ''people would die who would have survived.'' The background paper proclaims the program ''a total success'' that has saved 247 lives, 177 in North America. Most rescues were attributable to the Soviet satellites, according to the paper. Ironically, not a single Soviet citizen has been among those saved. nyt-08-31-84 1003edt ********** ------------------------------ Date: 30 Aug 84 8:35:27-PDT (Thu) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: hplabs!tektronix!teklds!azure!billp @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: Re: Space Toilets ------------ There is a very detailed article about the design and operation of the shuttle toilets in the Sep. 18, 1972 issue of "Design News". It is very informative and explains how all the problems were solved, especially how to connect to a female. The price at that time was quoted as $238,000 a piece. Bill Pfeifer {ucbvax,decvax,ihnp4,allegra,uw-beaver,hplabs} !tektronix!tekmdp!billp ------------------------------ Date: 30 Aug 84 20:16:56-PDT (Thu) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: hplabs!hao!seismo!ut-sally!ut-ngp!pyle @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: Discovery's 1st stage performance low? Just after SRB separation on Discovery's launch, Capcom informed the shuttle crew: "First stage - nominal." Shortly thereafter, Capcom came back with a revised evaluation that first stage performance was "low." Interestingly, the CNN people didn't pick up on this and nothing else was exchanged between the crew and ground (at least nothing that CNN aired) on the subject. What is considered in this evaluation? Was the SSME and/or SRB thrust too low? For that matter, how much is "low?" Keith Pyle UUCP: . . .{ihnp4,seismo,ctvax,kpno,gatech}!ut-sally!ut-ngp!pyle ARPA: pyle@ut-ngp ------------------------------ Date: 31 Aug 84 23:23:59-EDT (Fri) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: hplabs!hao!seismo!brl-tgr!jcp @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: Re: Discovery's 1st stage performance low? The 'SRB Performance Low' call you heard has occurred on almost every shuttle mission, and represents the Solids not achieving nominal thrust parameters. Due to the way solid rocket engines work, their performance is much more variable than equivalent liquids. The Discovery automatically compensates for low SRB performance by boosting thrust on the Space Shuttle Main Engines, or moving the throttle-back point slightly, (the region of maximum dynamic pressure). Typical 'low' values are 3 to 7 percent below nominal, I believe. Sufficient reserve fuel is always carried to compensate for low solid performance, as the shuttle must reach a fairly precise 'window in space' at the time of Main Engine shutdown in order to the OMS system, (which is much smaller than the SSMEs) to execute the orbit circularization burn successfully. None of the shuttle flights have had their orbital parameters significantly affected by low 1st stage performance. Most of this I learned from articles on the subject in Aviation Week -JCP- ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 02-Sep-84 0404 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #294 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 294 Today's Topics: Re: Space Toilets Pgh L5 meeting small star database Discovery flight postponed again Re: Public at Vandenberg launches Re: Space Toilets ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri 31 Aug 84 09:32:11-PDT From: Bill Park Subject: Re: Space Toilets ReSent-to: Space@MIT-MC.ARPA In any good bookstore, the large-format paperback ... Joels, K. M., Kennedy, G.P., and Larkin, D., @i{The Space Shuttle Operator's Manual}, New York, Ballantine Books (1982). ... see Chapter 2.17, "Personal Hygiene and Waste Management" ------------------------------ Date: 1 Sep 1984 21:04:12-EDT From: Dale.Amon at CMU-RI-FAS Subject: Pgh L5 meeting Mark Cromie of the NASA Industrial Applications Center will address the next Pittsburgh L5 general meeting. NIAC, located on the campus of the University of Pittsburgh, was organized to dispense NASA technology for the adoption by industry. Mr Cromie will discuss the center, it's purpose, and how technologies can be applied. Who: Mark Cromie, NIAC When: Wednesday, 9/5/84 20:00 Where: Porter Hall 126B, CMU ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 2 Sep 84 00:39:20 CDT From: Mike Caplinger Subject: small star database To: space@mit-mc.ARPA, physics@sri-unix.ARPA, sky-fans@mit-xx.ARPA Message-Id: I'm looking for somebody with access to either the SAO or SKYMAP machine-readable star catalogs. For some time, there's been a need for a small machine-readable catalog; I know of many people who would be interested. What I propose to do is find someone with all the tapes. I'll write a program to cull out a few thousand entries, and make this small database accessable via anonymous FTP. If anyone has either catalog, let me know. I will also need information on the format of the data, and which language/system will be most convenient. Please respond to me personally, and I'll announce the availability of the database if I have any luck. - Mike ------------------------------ Date: 29 Aug 84 22:58:27-PDT (Wed) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: ihnp4!ihlts!rjnoe @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: Discovery flight postponed again NASA announced late Tuesday evening that the first flight of the space shuttle Discovery had been postponed for the third time in two months. Launch has been rescheduled for 8:36 a.m. EDT Thursday, August 30. Tuesday afternoon, technicians discovered problems with an onboard electronic device called the master events controller (MEC). The MEC commands the separation of boosters and fuel tanks and begins the firing of the boosters and the detonation of the explosive bolts that hold the shuttle to the launch pad. Twice before, the crew of six had entered the shuttle, only to have the launch scrubbed. A computer failure stopped the countdown at T-9 minutes June 25 and the next day a faulty valve in one of the main engines caused an abort just seconds before the solid rockets were to have been ignited. This time, the crew was asleep when NASA officials made the decision less than 12 hours before the scheduled liftoff. Loading the shuttle's huge external tank with supercold liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen had not yet begun. The weather for Thursday morning looked good for a launch, forecasters said. -- Roger Noe uucp: ihnp4!ihlts!rjnoe ------------------------------ Date: 31 Aug 84 14:23:01-PDT (Fri) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: ihnp4!ulysses!smb @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: Re: Public at Vandenberg launches I expect that there will also be non-classified launches at Vandenburg, for any payload that needs to be in a polar orbit. There are already weather satellites and the like in such orbits. ------------------------------ Date: 31 Aug 84 16:34:02-PDT (Fri) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: hplabs!hao!cires!nbires!opus!atkins @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: Re: Space Toilets Please, please. I'm dying to know. How does a space toilet work, and how does it fit to a lady??????? If you all think it's that offensive, rotate it. Brian Atkins ...{hao, allegra, ucbvax, amd}!nbires!atkins ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 03-Sep-84 0406 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #295 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 295 Today's Topics: Discovery lifts off Re: Illegality of NERVA's??!! Re: Dreaded Killer Space Toilets Space Shuttle News Reference Re: Re: Illegality of NERVA's??!! Candidates Re: Candidates Re: Public at Vandenberg launches Dreaded Killer Space Toilets ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 30 Aug 84 7:20:26-PDT (Thu) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: ihnp4!ihlts!rjnoe @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: Discovery lifts off Space shuttle Discovery lifted off from Kennedy Space Center today at 08:41:50 EDT. The planned 10-minute hold at T-9 minutes was extended by almost 7 minutes to allow two aircraft to exit the intended solid rocket booster impact area. Discovery, although the lightest of the three orbiter vehicles, will be carrying a more massive payload into orbit than any shuttle mission to date. The first satellite deployment for Discovery is scheduled for later this afternoon. -- Roger Noe ihnp4!ihlts!rjnoe ------------------------------ Date: 30 Aug 84 11:45:53-PDT (Thu) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: ihnp4!houxm!mhuxl!ulysses!allegra!mouton!karn @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: Re: Illegality of NERVA's??!! Another reason why the Russians like nuclear reactors so much for their spacecraft is that you can generate enormous amounts of power in a small space, unlike solar cells. This comes in handy for high powered active radars which scan the oceans for things like American navy ships. Phil ------------------------------ Date: 30 Aug 84 15:13:31-PDT (Thu) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: ihnp4!ihlts!rjnoe @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: Re: Dreaded Killer Space Toilets > the toilet seems to be THE component that fails most often Probably true, mainly because it's something that media people can understand. Therefore they don't hesitate to inform us whenever the potty's broken. It isn't new to the shuttle program, though. I think they also had problems aboard Skylab. > HOW does one handle certain, ahem, bodily functions in space? > I would think that [microgravity] would pose some interesting problems > Also, what do the astronauts do when the toilet breaks? > George Verbosh, Perkin-Elmer, 106 Apple St., Tinton Falls, NJ 07724 Gosh, George, I think Miss Manners should be the one to whom you address these questions. But since she isn't on the net (to my knowledge), I think I'll answer. The commode works by air flow. Fans move the, uh, right stuff into revolving blades where it gets pureed and saved until the orbiter lands. Then it is removed, much like in jetliners. Have you ever wondered what those dozen or so trucks are doing around the orbiter shortly after landing, but before the astronauts are allowed to egress? That's right, disposing of some deadly vapors. You can probably imagine what six adults can do in a week. If you can, you should seek help. (OK, some of those noxious fumes are actually from hydrazine.) One of the problems with the commodes was that the fans were too powerful, and this caused the, ahem, right stuff to return into the cabin (where it became the wrong stuff). Definitely a case of the shit hitting the fan. (Sorry, I just couldn't pass up that one.) Elimination of liquids is accomplished by suction also. The astronaut places a receptacle (which fits either body type) over the appropriate appendage. The receptacle is connected to a hose, which sucks away the liquid. Now, I know what you're thinking and I really don't think the suction is strong enough to be - shall we say - interesting. Anyway, the liquid is periodically vented to space (not during an EVA, I hope) where it makes pretty crystals. Speaking of things periodical, you might be interested in a story I heard about accomodations for the first U.S. women astronauts. NASA decided that each female astronaut would have a certain number (no, I don't remember, but I can look it up) of tampons in her government-issued personal gear. It took the astronaut candidates themselves (as I heard it) to notice that when you opened the box to use one, all the tampons would float away. Needless to say, this would not be desirable. So they had tampons manufactured all on one long string. When the astronaut needs to use one, she cuts one off the end with her scissors. I suppose that women who wish to use pads rather than tampons simply can't be astronauts. Anyway, back to the main subject. If the commode fails, the astronauts return to the method used on other space flights. NASA has a long, technical name for this, complete with acronym, that is something like Personally Handled Elimination of Waste (PHEW). No, I really forgot what the name was but I do know essentially what the method is. Large baggies. Can you imagine what fun teenagers could have on Halloween with those? -- "It's only by NOT taking the human race seriously that I retain what fragments of my once considerable mental powers I still possess." Roger Noe ihnp4!ihlts!rjnoe ------------------------------ Date: 30 Aug 84 18:46:34-PDT (Thu) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: ihnp4!ihnp1!jnorris @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: Space Shuttle News Reference Someone mentioned a news reference by Rockwell for the shuttle. Can someone tell me the title and how to obtain a copy. Thanks in advance, jmn ------------------------------ Date: 30 Aug 84 16:08:40-PDT (Thu) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: ihnp4!ihnp3!dhp @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: Re: Re: Illegality of NERVA's??!! My understanding was that the NERVA program was cancelled for political rather than technical reasons. Even though it was primarily intended for use outside of the atmosphere, the idea of having to blow up a rocket on a launch abort with a BIG nuclear reactor aboard was just a little too much for average, faint-hearted politician to take. This is also the reason you don't see much serious discussion about disposing of nuclear wastes in space (aside from cost considerations). NERVA is probably the most cost-effective/time-effective kind of space propulsion within the technical means today, but I bet you won't see it fly in our lifetime; politics, anti-nuke reactionaries, and crippling international treaties will see to that. -- Douglas H. Price Analysts International Corp. @ AT&T Bell Laboratories ..!ihnp4!ihnp3!dhp ------------------------------ Date: 30 Aug 84 13:34:49-PDT (Thu) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: pur-ee!neudeck @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: Candidates I need to know what the positions of both Ronald Reagan and Walter Mondale are concerning the space program. I already have a general impression of what they might be, but I need a policy statement of some kind with specific information concerning the shuttle, interplanetary and scientific missions, involvement of private industry, support of NASA funding, and so on. I can't find anything on Mondale's position, so if anyone out there has any idea, please pass it on. Thanks in advance, Phil Neudeck Purdue EE ------------------------------ Date: 31 Aug 84 8:19:16-PDT (Fri) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: ihnp4!houxm!hogpc!houxe!drutx!druxm!cac @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: Re: Candidates There is an article in this months DISCOVERY magazine that discusses the candidates position on science programs. ------------------------------ Date: 31 Aug 84 7:17:09-PDT (Fri) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: ihnp4!houxm!mhuxl!mhuxm!rhib @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: Re: Public at Vandenberg launches According to press reports of a few months ago, all launches at Vandenberg AFB will be off-limits to the public due to the classified nature of most payloads originating from there, as well as the general security needed at this air base. If recent press about VAFB construction deficiencies is correct, I wonder whether NASA will have to place KSC off-limits for some launches which could be rescheduled there from VAFB. ------------------------------ Date: 31 Aug 84 8:58:30-PDT (Fri) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: hplabs!tektronix!uw-beaver!microsoft!fluke!inc @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: Dreaded Killer Space Toilets I've often wondered, too. I seem to recall an article many years ago that described the liquid waste system for males as sort of a condom with a rubber tube but have no idea of how the valves or pumps would operate. As to solids -- my word! I can sort of picture the collector, but can't imagine it would be very comfortable. Perhaps it's only inserted when needed? And even with this speculation, I still can't think of how a female liquid system would operate. Complicated. Can someone in the know provide the straight poop? I don't think there's really a need to rotate or be worried about senstitivities -- this is all in the interest of science, right? As an aside -- at an Air Show last year, I saw the SR-71, and plainly recall a plate on the underbelly which was about 25 x 25 cm attached with 6 screws and plainly labeled, "Pilot Waste Removal". -- Gary Benson ms232e -*- John Fluke Mfg Co -*- Box C9090 -*- Everett WA 98206 USA {microsoft,allegra,ssc-vax,sun,sb1}{decvax,ihnp4,tektronix!uw-beaver}!fluke!inc duetotheshortageofrobotsallourworkersarehumanandmayreactunpredictablywhenabused ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 04-Sep-84 0405 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #296 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 296 Today's Topics: solar "sails" dead space toilet Toilet Solution ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 3 September 1984 09:56-EDT From: Robert Elton Maas Subject: solar "sails" To: SPACE @ MIT-MC The term "solar sail" has meant a lightweight film of material stretched across the path of light to reflect or absorb some of it to provide momentum directly by the momentum of the incoming light (if light is absorbed, you get 100% of the momentum, if reflected you get up to 200% depending on angle of reflction relative to incoming light). But recently NASA has been using the term "solar sail" to mean a large array of photovoltaic cells mounted on a surface that extendsfrom the STS orbiter. What twit at NASA is responsible? ------------------------------ Date: 3 Sep 1984 11:52:22-EDT From: Hank.Walker at CMU-CS-UNH Subject: dead space toilet The shuttle's urine exhaust port is blocked by a huge chunk of ice, putting the toilet out of commission. There is talk about using the arm to knock off the ice, but not for a while. In the meantime, they're supposed to go back to baggies. But what is Judy Resnick supposed to do? Does she use a little funnel or vacuum cleaner or something? I bet she'd really love to take a space walk right now. ------------------------------ Date: 3 Sep 1984 21:55:28-EDT From: Hank.Walker at CMU-CS-UNH Subject: Toilet Solution On the news they said that only the liquid waste system was dead, and the toilet was still usable for solid waste. The men will use the baggies, but Judy Resnick will still use the toilet. ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 05-Sep-84 0404 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #297 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 297 Today's Topics: space toilets Space Toilets Re: Space Toilets UFOs and the FAA ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 4 Sep 1984 09:53:45-EDT From: Peter.Su at CMU-CS-GANDALF Subject: space toilets Here's a post that is not mine: Date: 3 Sep 84 19:17:46 EDT From: DR1K@CMU-CC-TF To: hugo@CMU-CS-GANDALF Subject: Space Toilets Thought you all might be interested in this, from Ben Bova's introduction to _Callahan's Crosstime Saloon_, by Spider Robinson... "I remember getting a newspaper cliping from Spider which showed a NASA drawing of the design for a toilet to be used under zero-gravity conditions in the Skylab satellite. (NASA has problems that thee and me can't even guess at.) The cutaway drawing of this engineering marvel showed that there was a rotating blade inside the toilet bowl, to 'seperate the liquid from the solid wastes,' as NASA's engineers euphemistically put it. "Spider, in his scrawly handwriting, had scribbled across the top of the cliping a brief note, followed by an arrow that pointed unerringly to the bowl and the seperator blade. The note said, 'Ben: Near as I can figure it, the shit is supposed to hit the fan...'" Dave Lewis dl02@cmu-cc-td Bye, Pete ------------------------------ Date: 4 Sep 84 13:05:46 PDT (Tuesday) From: GMeredith.es@XEROX.ARPA Subject: Space Toilets To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC.ARPA cc: GMeredith.es@XEROX.ARPA I am relieved to learn of the workings of the Space Toilet. The incident on the shuttle over the weekend left me somewhat concerned and speculating about orbital characteristics of ejected substances and specifically about orbital decay. You see, if the boil-off of ice formed from the liquid material should be able to shield the solid waste during reentry... Guy ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 4 Sep 84 14:18:40 pdt From: Rick McGeer (on an aaa-60-s) Message-Id: <8409042118.AA12820@ucbkim.ARPA> Phone: (415) 236-8262 To: GMeredith.es@XEROX.ARPA, Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC.ARPA Subject: Re: Space Toilets Happens from 747's all the time. See, as Spider Robinson pointed out in Callahan's Crosstime Saloon, you don't need to go to war to get hit with an icy bm... Rick. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 4 Sep 84 16:12:20 PDT From: David Alpern To: Space@mit-mc.arpa, CURIOS: ; Subject: UFOs and the FAA For the benefit of those of you who don't receive the NY Times, the following was in an article a week or so back about UFO sitings: "Why would we care about a U.F.O.?" said Louis Achitoff, a spokesman for the eastern region of the F.A.A., in an interview. "If the pilot's up there with a clearance and at the right altitude, we don't care what planet he comes from." I wonder if NORAD would agree. ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 06-Sep-84 0404 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #298 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 298 Today's Topics: Re: Space Toilets MISSION 41G SCHEDULE Space Shuttle Network Coverage Re: Space Toilets Space Toilets ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 31 Aug 84 8:40:22-PDT (Fri) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: hplabs!zehntel!zinfandel!berry @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: Re: Space Toilets A possibly apocryphal tale concerns a clipping describing the Space Toilet that Larry Niven sent to Jerry Pournelle (or maybe vice versa, or maybe two entirely different people, it was a long time ago) with the part labelled "Liquid/Solid Separation Impeller" circled with the notation "Jerry: as near as I can figure, the fuvg is SUPPOSED to hit the fan!" My apologies to the two gentlemen involved if I have misattributed the story. -- Berry Kercheval Zehntel Inc. (ihnp4!zehntel!zinfandel!berry) (415)932-6900 ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 5 Sep 84 11:53 PDT From: ANDERSON.ES@XEROX.ARPA Subject: MISSION 41G SCHEDULE To: Space@MIT-MC.ARPA cc: Anderson.ES@XEROX.ARPA ReplyTo: Anderson STS mission 41G (Challenger) is scheduled to liftoff from KSC on Monday, 10-1-84 at 7 A.M. EST (before sunrise). It will be an eight day mission scheduled to land at KSC on Tuesday, 10-16-84 at 12:21 P.M. EST. It will be the largest crew ever sent into space - 7 people - of which 2 are women (another first). Discovery is scheduled to begin its next mission (41H) from KSC on 11-2-84. Craig Anderson ------------------------------ Date: 4 Sep 84 13:52:27-PDT (Tue) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: hplabs!sdcrdcf!alan @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: Space Shuttle Network Coverage Being a classoc night person, i woke up a little late for the last launch; i turned on the TV at 5:44 PDT, only to see the parting logo from ABC's coverage. NBC and CBS had already turned to their regular broadcasts. Later that day i learned that the launc had been postponed from its scheduled 5:35 launch by 7 minutes. According to my calculations, the launch occured at 5:42 . From this i conclude that not one of the networks gave more than 2 minutes of air time to the flight once the engines started! What's going on with those guys? sdcrdcf!alan ------------------------------ Date: 4 Sep 84 11:43:23-PDT (Tue) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: hplabs!sdcrdcf!alan @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: Re: Space Toilets So the toilet is stopped up. So what do you expect? There's a woman on board, isn't there? :-) sdcrdcf!alan :-) ------------------------------ Date: 5 Sep 84 21:15:38-PDT (Wed) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: decvax!mcnc!duke!rch @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: Space Toilets According to someone who should know, here's the poop on female waste disposal: "female waste disposal is accomplished via a plastic/impermeable synthetic material which encloses the female perineum and is secured by strong adhesive to the skin; the apex of the collection unit is drained by a tube which can be open or closed - when open, the unit drains into a large central collection unit; this is a modification of a technique used to collect urine from female infants in whom a urinary tract infection is suspected." ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 07-Sep-84 0403 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #299 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 299 Today's Topics: Ice in space LAUNCH / RE-ENTRY VIDEO Space Shuttle Camp mondale space position Re: NASA Broadcasts on CATV ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 4 Sep 84 10:57:40-PDT (Tue) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: ihnp4!houxm!vax135!cornell!uw-beaver!ssc-vax!fluke!vince @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: Ice in space Something stikes me very strange about the waste water vents on the Discovery being blocked by ice. How is it possible for ice to exist (for any length of time) in a vacume? I have not consulted my Thermodynamics book for the specifics, but as I recall, water should immediately vaporize in a vacume. Even if it did collect into a mass of ice, I should think that sublimation would cause it to disappear in short order. What's going on here? Are we getting the straight poop? Craig Johnson John Fluke Mfg. Co., Inc. {uw-beaver,decvax!microsof,ucbvax!lbl-csam,allegra,ssc-vax}!fluke!vince ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 6 Sep 84 16:48 PDT From: ANDERSON.ES@XEROX.ARPA Subject: LAUNCH / RE-ENTRY VIDEO To: Space@MIT-MC.ARPA cc: Anderson.ES@XEROX.ARPA I was just thinking the other day about this question and wondered if anyone on the net has an answer. Why is it that we never see any pictures of the shuttle astronauts, cockpit, or views out the windows during launch, re-entry, and landing (even pre-launch & post-landing)? I'm sure it would be technically possible. I would think that they could at least set up a movie camera or videotape inside if live pictures couldn't get through due to all the interference. I do seem to recall at least one view (years ago?) of an astronaut's contorted face during launch and a brief view of a fireball outside a cockpit window (can't remember which spacecraft). And of course there were the beautiful shots of the Apollo Saturn 5B stage seperations, but no inside shots. How come? Craig Anderson Xerox Corp. 213-536-7299 ------------------------------ Date: 6 Sep 1984 19:57-EDT From: Dan Hoey Subject: Space Shuttle Camp To: SPACE at MIT-MC Forwarded from the Stanford BBOARD... Date: Mon 3 Sep 84 22:56:34-PDT From: Andy Freeman Last week, NASA announced the civilian space camp. Twenty adults will spend three days training at a simulated mission control and take part in a simulated space shuttle flight. The first trial camp is October 19-21 and will cost $200. I believe all this will happen at the Alabama Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville, but I didn't see the announcement. If you have more information, please send it to me. thanks, -andy (andy@score) Dan ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 6 Sep 1984 23:26 EDT Message-ID: From: G.MCMULLAN%MIT-EECS@MIT-MC.ARPA To: space-enthusiasts@MIT-MC Subject: mondale space position a while back someone asked about the positions of the various presidential candidates on space research. well, in his book "A Step Farther Out" (somewhat old news, but **highly** recommended for those who have not yet read it), Jerry Pournelle states that "...Vice President Mondale while a Senator each year introduced a bill to ***KILL NASA ENTIRELY*** (emphasis mine), abolish all its research and developement..." i very much doubt that his ideas have changed too much since that was written, or we would have heard about it by now. greg mcmullan (g.mcmullan@mit-eecs) ------------------------------ Date: 5 Sep 84 14:29:18-PDT (Wed) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: hplabs!hpda!fortune!amd!rocksvax!dw @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: Re: NASA Broadcasts on CATV I looked into the subject of NASA broadcasts of Shuttle events about a year and a half ago. At that time the details were: The satellite is SATCOM F2; the channel is 13. It's location is 119W; freq is 3.960 GHz; polarization is Vertical. I believe that most of the cable tv stuff (such as HBO) are on SATCOM F3, which is at 131W. I also understand that these signals are Horizontal polarization. The information above was suppose to be valid in December of 1982. It should probably be verified. /Don "Are you mostly engineer, or are you mostly human being?" arpa: Wegeng.Henr@Xerox.ARPA uucp: {allegra,princeton,decvax!rochester,amd,sunybcs}!rocksvax!dw || ihnp4!tropix!ritcv!rocksvax!dw ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 08-Sep-84 0404 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #300 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 300 Today's Topics: Re: Space Toilets Re: Toilets in Space Nasa SPace Shuttle Camp re: out-the-cockpit views SATCOM polarization National Space Institute financial report Any AstroPhotographers out there? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 6 Sep 84 9:20:32-PDT (Thu) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: hplabs!sdcrdcf!alan @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: Re: Space Toilets >"female waste disposal is accomplished via a plastic/impermeable >synthetic material which encloses the female perineum and is >secured by strong adhesive to the skin; It's interesting to think about what a job it must be to get it off. ------------------------------ Date: 6 Sep 84 14:27:40-PDT (Thu) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: hplabs!sdcrdcf!alan @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: Re: Toilets in Space < As a gift from the Gods, the bushmen received an empty Coke bottle; thanks to the clogged toilet, what will they get next? > Someone on the ARPAnet, asked me to explain the clogged toilet joke i posted earlier. Since people on uucp cannot send mail to the ARPAnet (*Remember this, guys*), and others *might* be confused (if you have never lived both with and without women), i'll explain it here. It was meant as a cute, not-to-be-taken-seriously, joke bringing up the apparent propensity of women to clog toilets with masses of toilet paper, hygenic napkins, and God knows what all else. ------------------------------ Date: 7 Sep 1984 11:13-EDT Sender: MHARRIS@BBNF.ARPA Subject: Nasa SPace Shuttle Camp From: MHARRIS@BBNF.ARPA To: Hoey@NRL-AIC.ARPA Cc: SPACE@MIT-MC.ARPA, MHarris@BBNF.ARPA Message-ID: <[BBNF.ARPA] 7-Sep-84 11:13:02.MHARRIS> Sorry, I don't have any information on this, but I'd sure like some. Thanks. --mh ------------------------------ Date: Fri 7 Sep 84 10:50:25-PDT From: Micheal Hewett Subject: re: out-the-cockpit views To: space@MIT-MC.ARPA At the Lawrence Hall of Science in Berkeley, they have a videodisc machine hooked up to an Apple II computer. You can play a regular computer game in which you attempt to take off in the Shuttle and place it in orbit, or you can display "films" from the videodisc. There are 5-10 different films. One of them is a landing at Edwards AFB as seen from the cockpit of the Shuttle. I think most of these films are from the first flight of Columbia. They are excellent shots and well worth seeing. Mike (HEWETT@SU-SCORE) ------------------------------ Date: 7 Sep 1984 1114-PDT From: Rem@IMSSS Subject: SATCOM polarization To: SPACE%MIT-MC@SCORE It would seem to me that horizontal polarization is ambiguous, is it N-S or E-W, while vertical polarization is bad design, because the Earth is nearly exactly under the satellite (point on equator is exactly under satellite, while anywhere else on Earth such as North American ground station is at most 4000 miles deviation from exactly-under at a distance of 24,000 miles) and electromagnetic signals propagate only at right angles to their electric field change (and at right angles to their magnetic field change; the three vectors form an orthogonal set in 3-space), thus using cosine rule conversion from antenna beam field and transmission direction you'd get very little signal at Earth. I suspect by "horizontal" they mean "horizontal at ground station that is due North of beam point" which would mean east-west, while "vertical" would mean north-south. This still leaves the question of whether they are talking about the electric or the magnetic field vector. Can I assume they are talking about the electric field vector?? Or are they really using some strange kind of circular polarization that appears horizontal from all points on Earth (except directly under satellite where it can't be received at all)? ------------------------------ Date: Friday, 7 September 1984 17:51:04 EDT From: Howard.Gayle@cmu-cs-g.arpa To: Space@mit-mc.arpa Subject: National Space Institute financial report Message-ID: <1984.9.7.21.33.0.Howard.Gayle@cmu-cs-g.arpa> After seeing a post about the National Space Institute on this bboard a few weeks ago, I wrote to them for information, an annual report, and a financial statement. I just received a letter stating that they do not disclose their annual report or financial statement. No reason was given. Not-for-profit organizations routinely provide financial statements to potential contributors, so NSI's policy seems rather unusual and unfortunate. Even though I agree completely with their aims, I don't intend to give them any money without knowing how much of it will actually be spent on space, and how much on fund raising, administration, and other overhead. If any of you have access to a financial summary, I would appreciate a copy, but please, no flames. ------------------------------ Date: 7 Sep 1984 1647 PDT From: Ron Tencati Subject: Any AstroPhotographers out there? To: SPACE@MIT-MC Cc: SKY-FANS@MIT-XX Reply-To: TENCATI@JPL-VLSI.ARPA I recently purchased a Celestron C-11 telescope. I would like to do some astrophotography. I used Poloroids slide film (ASA 40) to take some rather nice shots of the moon. I would like to take some pictures of the planets. Has anyone out there been through this before? Can someone give me some hints as to what is the best speed film to use for the best results. I would also like to have input from anyone regarding what exposure times are the best for the different planets. I know it depends what focal length I am shooting with. I'm not sure. I would like to do eyepiece projection using the celestron tele-extender and an 18mm and 9mm eyepiece. Has anyone used FUJI's HR1600 film? How does it perform? Thanks in advance for any information. Ron Tencati Tencati@JPL-VLSI.ARPA ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 09-Sep-84 0403 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #301 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 301 Today's Topics: The view out the shuttle windows Discovery a lightweight? Re: Space Toilets New IRAS object???? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 7 Sep 84 10:53:48-PDT (Fri) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: hplabs!ames!eugene @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: The view out the shuttle windows [] I can remember in the earliest shuttle missions, that a pink glow was reported out the windows during reentry. There were also views out the window during launch. I suspect that some of this footage and future IMAX cameras will be showing this in the upcoming Air and Space Museum film. I only saw this on a B&W monitor, but I am certain it will be quite a gas! --eugene miya NASA ARC ------------------------------ Date: 6 Sep 84 22:03:19-PDT (Thu) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: hplabs!tektronix!ogcvax!sequent!brian @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: Discovery a lightweight? A few days ago, in an article about Discovery, Roger Noe mentioned that she is lighter than her predecessors. I am curious how they achieved this and if the weight reduction affords Discovery a larger payload, or if it will be used to increase safety margins or some- thing. Brian M. Godfrey ------------------------------ Date: 2 Sep 84 8:40:48-PDT (Sun) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: hplabs!hao!denelcor!neal @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: Re: Space Toilets ************************************************************************** >Please, please. I'm dying to know. How does a space toilet work, >and how does it fit to a lady??????? Veeeeeeeeeeeeeery Carefully :-) Sorry, just couldn't resist. Regards, Neal Weidenhofer "Nothin' ain't worth nothin' Denelcor, Inc. but it's free" !denelcor!neal ------------------------------ Date: 7 Sep 84 10:22:52-PDT (Fri) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: pur-ee!CS-Mordred!Pucc-H.Physics.els @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: New IRAS object???? US News & World Report has a small article reporting that IRAS saw an object at a distance of 50 billion miles!! Has anyone out there heard of this? Let's hope it is true! ------------------------------------------------------------------------ A message from the mental maze that calls itself: ERIC STROBEL UUCP: {decvax,ucbvax,harpo,allegra,inuxc,seismo,teklabs}!pur-ee!Physics:els INTERNET: els @ pur-phy.UUCP ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 10-Sep-84 0404 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #302 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 302 Today's Topics: Re: Dreaded Killer Space Toilets ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 2 Sep 84 20:47:00-PDT (Sun) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: hplabs!hao!seismo!rochester!rocksvax!dave @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: Re: Dreaded Killer Space Toilets I heard they played brown astroroids when the potty failed.... ---- Dave arpa: Sewhuk.HENR@Xerox.ARPA uucp: {allegra,rochester,amd,sunybcs}!rocksvax!dave ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 12-Sep-84 0404 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #303 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 303 Today's Topics: Article on Space Shuttle in CACM Search for the missing mass NAVSTAR Launch ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 11 Sep 1984 15:02-EST From: Jon.Webb@CMU-CS-IUS2.ARPA Subject: Article on Space Shuttle in CACM To: Space@mc Message-Id: <463777355/webb@CMU-CS-IUS2> This month's (September) Communications of the ACM has a series of articles on the space shuttle's computers. Included are discussions of the shuttle's hardware and software, and explanations of various bugs encountered. Jon ------------------------------ Date: 11 Sep 84 1922 PDT From: Ross Finlayson Subject: Search for the missing mass To: space@MIT-MC.ARPA n124 0030 11 Sep 84 BC-UNIVERSE (ScienceTimes) By WILLIAM J. BROAD c. 1984 N.Y. Times News Service NEW YORK - A cosmic mystery of immense proportions, once seemingly on the verge of solution, has deepened and left astronomers and astrophysicists more baffled than ever. The crux of the riddle is that the vast majority of the mass of the universe seems to be missing. Or, more accurately, it is invisible to the most powerful telescopes on earth or in the heavens. The chief suspects in the case of the invisible mass - many trillions of subatomic particles known as neutrinos - have now been discredited, according to a recent article in the British journal Nature. The increasingly bizarre news has caused a crisis among cosmologists, according to Dr. Jeremiah Ostriker, an astrophysicist at Princeton University. ''The discrepancy between what was expected and what has been observed has grown over the years, and we're straining harder and harder to fill the gap,'' he said. According to astrophysicists, calculations show that the sum of all the known dust, planets, comets, asteroids, stars, pulsars, and quasars now accounts for about 1 percent of the matter that theory says ought to make up the universe - that is, unless there is a flaw in current understanding of the laws of nature. ''It remains one of our great, great problems,'' said Dr. Frank Wilczek, an astrophysicist at the Institute for Theoretical Physics at the University of California at Santa Barbara. The depth of the mystery is illustrated by the odd suspects now being put forward to account for the invisible mass: Giant slush balls, swarms of black holes, cosmic rocks and exotic new types of hypothetical subatomic particles with names like photinos and winos. ''Why now further strain credulity?'' asked John Maddox, Nature's editor, in a recent editorial. ''Would it not be simpler if cosmologists abandoned their belief that there is a missing mass?'' The answer given by Maddox and other scientists is that the evidence for some kind of ''dark matter'' has been growing steadily for nearly a half century. Indeed, the case is now so compelling that scientists around the globe are redoubling their efforts to track it down. The first hint of the riddle came in the 1930s when an astronomer noticed that some galaxies within a dense galactic cluster were moving much faster than expected, suggesting that some kind of invisible force was at work. Decades later astronomers came up with an even more startling discovery: The stars on the outer rims of galaxies were rotating around galactic centers at speeds much faster than expected. Both these observations suggested that invisible matter was at work. The reason, according to Wilczek, can be seen by visualizing the same kind of discovery in our own solar system. It has been observed for centuries that the outer planets move more slowly around the Sun than the inner ones. This is because the strength of the Sun's gravitational pull increases as planets get closer to it. If outer planets like Pluto had been observed to be orbiting much faster than they actually do, astronomers would have deduced that there was a great mass at work in addition to the Sun, exerting a powerful gravitational pull from somewhere beyond the edge of the solar system. ''In the same way,'' Wilczek said, ''there seems to be a massive halo of dark matter surrounding every galaxy. What has been found consistently is that the mass of the universe measured gravitationally is always bigger than what you observe.'' How much bigger? Based on calculations from gravitational tugs, there seems to be about 10 times more matter than has been observed. ''The problem,'' Ostriker noted, ''is not missing matter but missing light. Something is out there. We just don't know what it is.'' Astrophysicists say the problem is even worse than that. Even the added unseen matter implied by the powerful gravitational tugs brings the total known mass of the universe to only about 10 percent of what is believed, on the basis of current theory, to be out there. More than 90 percent is still missing. Belief in this ghostly matter is based in part on philosophy, astrophysicists say. If there is not more matter, the universe will go on expanding forever, pushed ever outward by the residual power of the big bang - that moment in the primordial past when the universe was born in a hot explosion of dazzling brilliance. If, on the other hand, there is a critical amount of additional matter out there somewhere, the universe's overall gravitational pull will cause it to eventually slam back together. According to Dr. David Schramm, an astrophysicist at the University of Chicago, new theories of cosmology are giving this philosophical view a firm basis in fact. Further, he said, the added portion of ''missing mass'' must be something other than everyday matter. This odd twist has been deduced by measuring the spectral lines in starlight and calculating the total amount of elements like deuterium in the universe, he said. Only a certain amount of it could have been synthesized during the big bang, and it would occur in a certain ratio to the rest of the normal matter in the universe. Most of the rest of the invisible mass, he said, is probably not in the form of baryons - the generic name for the protons and neutrons that make up ordinary matter. It is something different, something that might be wholly outside the realm of human experience. As the mystery of the invisible mass has grown over the years, so have the number of candidates put forward to account for it. According to Ostriker, the first ones were low-mass stars, slush balls, brown dwarfs and intergalactic dust and gas. The problem is that astronomers over the past decade have developed sophisticated ways to detect such low-luminosity matter, and so far not enough has been found to make an appreciable dent in the overall problem. Another candidate is swarms of black holes - stars so dense that even light cannot escape their powerful gravitational pull. Ostriker said the search for these black holes is intensifying. Each black hole would need to have a few million solar masses, and there would need to be millions of them scattered around the edges of galaxies. ''We're looking for gravitational lens and other effects that might be caused by them,'' he said. ''It's speculative, but in this realm everything is speculative.'' The main candidate since the mid-1970s has been neutrinos, a ghostly subatomic particle that does not react with normal matter. Astrophysicists say neutrinos are appealing candidates precisely because they are not baryons - that is, not normal matter. Another reason for their allure is that unlike black holes or slush balls, they are clearly one of the main forms of matter in the universe. A single human body at any one instant holds a few hundred million of them, according to Wilczek. The problem with neutrinos is that they have no mass - at least, they did not until Russian researchers in the mid-1970s reported that they did. That discovery immediately made them a key candidate for the missing mass. Unfortunately, no other researchers around the globe have been able to detect mass in neutrinos. Further, according to the Aug. 23 issue of Nature, a universe in which neutrinos had mass would look quite different from the one we see about us. ''It's probably the end of neutrinos in the standard cosmology,'' said Simon D. M. White, an author of the article, in a telephone interview from his office at the Steward Observatory at the University of Arizona. ''We tried to see if you could fix things up, but it was extremely difficult to find anything that worked.'' For instance, White and Dr. Piet Hut, his coauthor, found on the basis of computer simulations that if neutrinos had mass, all the galaxies in the universe would still be in the process of forming, rather than being largely complete. Thus, to date, all the major suspects have either been discredited or are still under investigation. Nothing so far fits the description for the invisible matter. The search, according to Schramm, is thus increasingly turning to different types of hypothetical nonbaryonic particles with names like gravitinos, photinos and axions. Teasing these odd particles into the light of day might take the construction of the biggest and costliest project in the history of pure science, a multibillion-dollar atom smasher that American physicists want to build in the 1990s. It would stretch 60 to 120 miles in circumference. So too, new suspects will be sought in the heavens as astronomers during the next decade put powerful telescopes into orbit that will, for the first time, be able to peer to the edge of the universe. Astronomers say strange new candidates, more bizarre than black holes, might thus be discovered. A final way out of the conundrum, scientists say, would be some kind of breakthrough in their understanding of the forces of universe, for instance, a new theory of gravity that would explain why stars on the rims of galaxies move so quickly. But that solution, they say, is the most radical of all. They would much rather discover the stars or particles that have so far eluded their grasp. ------------------------------ Date: 10 Sep 84 12:40:09-PDT (Mon) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: hplabs!hao!seismo!cmcl2!lanl-a!ths @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: NAVSTAR Launch Had the privilege of viewing the launch of a NAVSTAR GPS last saturday from Vandenberg. The Atlas used was 23 years old. This was my first launch and I was very suprised by the brighness of the exhaust. Also toured the Shuttle facility. It is easy for the public to get within 3 miles of the major launch complexes simply by driving west out of Lompoc on 234 to the beach. I didn't explore the beach route to the shuttle area but as Norm Babcock said, it is certainly within several hundred yards of the beach itself which is public access....except perhaps during the launch. (Are you the the same Norm Babcock that worked for DPI?) Flew to Vandenberg on Friday via C-182, noted as we passed directly over Palmdale Plant 42 (on V-12), the new B-1B, several SR-71's that appeared to be in mothballs, and some U-2's. ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 13-Sep-84 0404 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #304 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 304 Today's Topics: Re: Search for the missing mass Discovery lands Possible correction to news story about missing mass Re: Discovery a lightweight? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 12 Sep 84 14:45:16 PDT (Wed) From: Rick Chestek Subject: Re: Search for the missing mass To: space@MIT-MC.ARPA, @, aids-unix@aids-unix It seems to me that many of the objections raised could be accounted for by assuming that gravitational pull is NOT constant, but time varying (possibly a monotonic decrease with time). Since the observations made on other galaxies are of events which took place long ago, measurements/calculations of gravitational constants based upon fairly local events (i.e. our own galaxy) might not directly apply to these other observations. Does anyone know if this possibility has been considered/investigated? Rick Chestek (rick@AIDS-UNIX) ------------------------------ Date: 5 Sep 84 10:02:57-EDT (Wed) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: ihnp4!ihlts!rjnoe @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: Discovery lands Space shuttle mission 41-D ended successfully as the orbiter Discovery touched down on dry lake runway 17 at Edwards Air Force Base, California at 6:38 a.m. PDT after a mission elapsed time of 6 days, 56 minutes. All three communications satellites deployed on this mission (SBS-D, Syncom IV-1, and Telstar 3-C) have reached geosynchronous orbital altitude without any problems at all. Also, the OAST-1 folding structure worked at least as well as expected and the continuous flow electrophoresis (CFES) experiment monitored by McDonnell Douglas Astronautics engineer Charles Walker produced valuable pharmaceutical samples despite some problems with the equipment. Apparently the crew experienced no space adaptation syndrome problems and the waste collection system functioned properly until another system clogged its discharge port with ice. The next mission, 41-G, is scheduled to begin October 1 with the launch of the orbiter Challenger. This ten-day mission will be commanded by Robert Crippen and piloted by Jon McBride. Mission specialists David Leetsma, Sally Ride, and Kathryn Sullivan and payload specialists Marc Garneau and Paul Scully-Power will round out the crew to seven, the largest yet for a space shuttle mission. Cargo will include the large format camera Earth resources mapping system and the Earth Radiation Budget Satellite (ERBS). Crew members will conduct a fluid transfer experiment. -- Roger Noe ihnp4!ihlts!rjnoe ------------------------------ Date: 12 Sep 1984 2232-PDT From: Rem@IMSSS Subject: Possible correction to news story about missing mass To: SPACE%MIT-MC@SCORE (From news story in recent space diegst:) If outer planets like Pluto had been observed to be orbiting much faster than they actually do, astronomers would have deduced that there was a great mass at work in addition to the Sun, exerting a powerful gravitational pull from somewhere beyond the edge of the solar system. Sloppy science journalism - adding mass outside the system doesn't change rate of rotation in the system, unless it's irregular in which case it totally messes up things with its purturbations. The place to add mass is in the annulus between the inner planets and the outer planets (or stars in case of galaxy). They don't affect the inner planets (stars) but do speed up outer planets (stars). By having extra mass distrubited all throughout, i.e. at all different radii, there's a gradual increase in effect as you go out further from the center of rotation of the system, with the outermost planets (stars) moving fastest. In such a case, the extra mass probably continues outward beyond the most distant planets (stars), which probably confused the writer of this news story, but this outer extra mass is merely correlated to the inner extra mass that causes the effect, the outer extra mass is not the cause of the effect. ------- ------------------------------ Date: 10 Sep 84 12:16:36-PDT (Mon) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: ihnp4!inuxc!inuxh!slb @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: Re: Discovery a lightweight? During a slide presentation given to family and friends of the Discovery crew, it was stated that Discovery does not use as many tiles as her sister ships. Some areas are now covered with a sheeting material that provides the necessary protection, but with a considerable savings in weight. Perhaps someone else has more specific info on the whys and hows?? Steve Browning (inuxh!slb) AT&T Consumer Products Indianapolis, IN ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 14-Sep-84 0405 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #305 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 305 Today's Topics: Discovery arrives at Kennedy Space Center Discovery Thermal Protection System Re: Search for the missing mass ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 11 Sep 84 6:54:11-PDT (Tue) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: ihnp4!ihlts!rjnoe @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: Discovery arrives at Kennedy Space Center Space shuttle orbiter Discovery returned safely to Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral, Florida at 11:38 a.m. EDT yesterday (Monday, Sept. 10). The shuttle and the modified Boeing 747 which carried it spent an extra day at Altus Air Force Base in southwestern Oklahoma because of uncertainties regarding the path of hurricane Diana. Discovery will now be prepared for launch in November. -- Roger Noe ihnp4!ihlts!rjnoe ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 13 Sep 84 09:26:27 pdt From: Alan Fernquist Message-Id: <8409131626.AA27560@amelia.ARPA> To: SPACE@MIT-MC.ARPA Subject: Discovery Thermal Protection System The Orbiter Discovery uses an advanced thermal protection blanket called Advanced Flexible Reusable Surface Insulation (AFRSI). It consists of a silica material sandwiched between an upper and lower quilt. The quilt is bonded directly on the orbiter's skin. It weighs less than the tiles and is easier to install, more durable and less easily damaged. AFRSI replaces the low temperature white tiles. Alan Fernquist NASA, ARC (fernquis@ames-nas-gw) ------------------------------ Date: 13 Sep 84 10:59:17 PDT (Thu) To: Rick Chestek cc: space@mit-mc Subject: Re: Search for the missing mass From: Martin D. Katz It seems to me that many of the objections raised could be accounted for by assuming that gravitational pull is NOT constant, but time varying (possibly a monotonic decrease with time). This hypothesis has been raised several times, but doesn't adequately solve the missing mass problem within galaxies and clusters. Only structures which are hundreds of millions of light years across would be affected at all by such a change. Such a change has been postulated in explanation of quasars, the red shift, and several other phenomena. By the way, the original article seems to use the philosophical desire to have a closed universe (on which will not continue to diverge forever) to indicate that an extra order of magnitude of extra mass must exist. This argument has never seemed convincing to me. ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 15-Sep-84 0405 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #306 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 306 Today's Topics: Galileo diversion to pass asteroid, a request Re: Search for the missing mass ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 14 Sep 1984 07:58:56-EDT From: sde@Mitre-Bedford To: space@mit-mc Subject: Galileo diversion to pass asteroid, a request Cc: pourne@mit-mc It has been reported that there is some thought toward having Galileo pass by an asteroid on its way to Jupiter. It would cost some money and delay the Jupiter arrival date, but ought to have some obvious benefits vis-a-vis the question of space resources. According to the article, THE DECISION MUST BE MADE BY OCTOBER 1. Does this warrant activating the telephone tree? David sde@mitre-bedford ------------------------------ Date: 14 Sep 84 09:10:06 PDT (Fri) To: Rick Chestek cc: Chestek@aids-unix, space@mit-mc Subject: Re: Search for the missing mass From: Martin D. Katz Why would "only structures which are hundreds of light years across" be affected by a change in gravitational pull? I meant to say "only structures which are hundreds of millions of light years across." I was assuming a change in gravitational pull which is consistent with the relative stabilities (with quite a lot of room of change) which have been observed. The problem is really that some black mass must exist (or some fundamental misunderstanding in our physics) in order to deal with the differences in scales between galaxies and galactic clusters. P.S. Can you point to me to the literature which has proposed time-varying gravitational "constants" to explain quasars, red-shift, etc? Much thanks. References have always been my weak point. There have been discussions on the issue in the past two years of Scientific American. In depth analyses can probably be found by following their references and using the "Science Citation Index" (write me privately if you don't know how to do this). ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 16-Sep-84 0405 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #307 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 307 Today's Topics: Re: LAUNCH / RE-ENTRY VIDEO - (nf) women flying the shuttle Re: VAFB Shuttle watching ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 10 Sep 84 10:27:00-PDT (Mon) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: pur-ee!uiucdcs!trsvax!gm @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: Re: LAUNCH / RE-ENTRY VIDEO - (nf) The "Space Archive: STS Missions 5,6, & 7" laserdisk has a clip of the re-entry process. The cockpit is dark, with the cherry-red sky seen out of the windows. Not that impressive. None of this "The Right Stuff" effects outside, just looks more like a fireplace than anything else. If you don't have this laserdisk, get it. If you don't have a laserdisk player, get one of those too. George Moore Tandy System Software uucp: {laidbak,sco,microsoft,sneaky,allegra!convex!ctvax}!trsvax!gm ------------------------------ Date: 12 Sep 84 17:48:09-PDT (Wed) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: hplabs!sdcrdcf!trwrb!trwspp!brahms @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: women flying the shuttle As you may know by now, the next mission of the shuttle (Challenger) will have two women on board, not to mention seven people on board. Both firsts (yeah for our team). My question is: When will the first woman pilot/command a shuttle? -- Brad Brahms usenet: {decvax,ucbvax}!trwrb!trwspp!brahms arpa: Brahms@USC-ECLC ------------------------------ From: tekred!normb%tektronix.csnet@csnet-relay.arpa To: tektronix!hplabs!ucbvax!anderson.es@xerox.arpa Cc: tektronix!tekred!normb@ucb-vax.arpa, space@mit-mc.arpa Date: Friday, 14 Sep 84 15:43:57 PDT Subject: Re: VAFB Shuttle watching Craig, please excuse the attached "form" letter. There were so many requests for info, that I had to resort to this. Norm Since it's Friday already, I thought I'd better respond to those who ask for information re VAFB shuttle watching, before another week goes by. I put some information on the net, a week or so ago, but I'll give a synopsis here: Lompoc is the best place to watch, but will be crowded. Lompoc officials expect up to 200,000 people to filter into the area. I recommended staying in Santa Barbara for the best access to Lompoc, Santa Maria second, and Solvang third. If you camp, that probably would be best. Gaviota, between Santa Barbara and Lompoc would be good. If the traffic gets the best of you, you still will get a pretty good wiew. The USAF will close all roads leading to the base, including the one to the little RR station called Surf, which is between North VAFB and South VAFB (the shuttle will launch from SVAFB). Lompoc will produce a publication explaining the rules, sometime in early '85. I'll post a address on the net when it's available. Just for you guys, I plan to watch from the one spot the Feds are likely to miss, the city dump. The dump is northwest of town, and overlooks a great deal of SVAFB. I won't be able to see lift- off, but should acquire within T+10 secs. You're welcome to join me if you can (depending on the wind) stand the smell. In response to those who ask "Are you the Norm Babcock who..." a brief resume: 1956-1959 U.S.Navy, flying the barrier between Midway and Adak. (Any of you out there familiar with that operation? 1960-1965 VAFB, Federal Electric Corp, rf labs, data reduction, test documentation. 1966-1967 DewLine 1968-1970 VAFB again 1970-1972 White Alice (Alaska) 1973-1976 VAFB (FEC WPO) anyone know about this? 1976- Tektronix I'd like to hear from anyone who has had experience relating to the above. Also from anyone who has a project (basket case) airplane, of the C-150/J-3/Super Cub (including Wag-Aero) or the like, and would like to get it out of the garage. Regards-Norm ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 17-Sep-84 0404 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #308 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 308 Today's Topics: Re: women flying shuttle Time variance of constants Mass distribution Large numbers hypothesis ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 16 Sep 1984 1557-PDT From: LEE at SU-STAR Subject: Re: women flying shuttle To: SPACE%MIT-MC%SCORE at SIERRA Reply-To: LEE at SU-STAR As far as female shuttle pilots, I don't think that there are any in the present groups of actual and prospective female astronauts. It seems that spacecraft pilots are usually selected from theranks of pilots having a LOT of experience with high-performance airplanes (i.e. fighter-interceptors & fighter-bombers) PLUS test-flying experience. Since the 1st requirement involves assignement to Air Force combat units, which women are presently barred from, I don't think that there are any presently in the pipeline that could become Shuttle pilots in the near future. Damn shame, isn't it? Emilio P. Calius Stanford U. ------------------------------ Date: 16 Sep 1984 20:18:47-EDT From: Dale.Amon at CMU-RI-FAS Subject: Time variance of constants The idea that uniervsal constants might vary was seriously considered, but is in disfavor now largely due to the fossil 'nuclear reactor' in Africa. This is a 1 or 1.5 Billion year old deposit of Uranium that was rich enough to have a continuous low level fission going for many millions of years. It has been studied in particular because it is an 'engineering prototype' for storage of fission products. It shows that they can, in practice, be kept out of the environment for a safe number of half lives. Anyway, the analysis of the reaction rates shows that the universal constants have been constant to within a VERY small error bar over astronomical time scales. And unless current physics is greatly mistaken in its attempts at unification, the ratio of the basic forces to each other are pretty much fixed. For those interested, this is the 'large numbers hypothesis' that noted the ratio of two of the forces (I think gravity and the weak force?) was on the same order of magnitude as the size of the universe in cm or some such rot. ------------------------------ Date: 16 Sep 1984 20:29:11-EDT From: Dale.Amon at CMU-RI-FAS Subject: Mass distribution The key to the constant rotation speed with increasing radii is that the mass is not only distributed unifromly, but that the object is at a radius interior to a large fraction of the distributed mass. For those who suffered the triple integrals of Fields, this is fairly similar to an many e-stat problems. Picture it this way: each object deep in the interior is gravitationally affected by the instantaneous sum of all the the other point sources. If the object is interior, many vectors cancel each other so the field strength is linear with radii. If the point is beyond the 3-d surface, all the vectors sum and allow the entire diffuse body to be simulated by a point mass with a corresponding square law decrease of field strength with distance from the center of mass. ------------------------------ Date: 16 Sep 1984 20:43:10-EDT From: Dale.Amon at CMU-RI-FAS Subject: Large numbers hypothesis I think it was an idea of Dirac's in the 1930's... ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 18-Sep-84 0404 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #309 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 309 Today's Topics: Missing Mass again... Challenger rolled out Galileo diversion to pass asteroid, a request ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 17 Sep 1984 12:59:19-EDT From: Dale.Amon at CMU-RI-FAS Subject: Missing Mass again... Over a pizza last night, I realized that my previous analysis could be stated better. Assume a diffuse, evenly distributed mass M contained with radius R. At any radius r within R, the portion of mass interior to r can be modeled as a point mass and a square law applied. All mass contained in volume infinitisemals exterior to the radius cancel out. If you move outwards by dr, the volume (and thus enclosed mass) increases by a cube, while the attraction from the original radius decreases by a square, resulting in a linear INCREASE in force. This holds for each r+dr =< R. For r+dr>R, a straight square law DECREASE in force occurs. Consider moving from the center of the Earth outwards. At the exact center all mass is exterior to you and you are at 0g. As you move outward, the gravity increase linearly to 1G at the surface, and then decrease via a square law as you move away from the surface. I'd try to do better, but 1) I don't have my copy of Thomas here. 2) Ascii doesn't handle integral equations, and a triple integral in spherical co-ordinates is the real way to express all this garbage. ------------------------------ Date: 14 Sep 84 6:47:51-PDT (Fri) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: ihnp4!ihlts!rjnoe @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: Challenger rolled out On September 13 space shuttle orbiter vehicle Challenger was rolled out to launch complex 39-A at Kennedy Space Center in preparation for its early October launch. Challenger was rolled out with only two of its three main engines, while work is being done on the third. This is not expected to delay the launch. Launch for the eight-day mission is expected to be around October 4. A rehearsal countdown is scheduled for September 15. -- Roger Noe ihnp4!ihlts!rjnoe ------------------------------ Date: 18 September 1984 05:05-EDT From: Jerry E. Pournelle Subject: Galileo diversion to pass asteroid, a request To: sde @ MITRE-BEDFORD cc: SPACE @ MIT-MC Since I have no management authority nor wish to have such for L-5 you must consult someone else on this. I heard today that the decision on asteroid was no go. ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 19-Sep-84 0403 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #310 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 310 Today's Topics: Re: Discovery a lightweight? Drexler in Reason Magazine Re: Discovery a lightweight? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 15 Sep 84 12:42:52-PDT (Sat) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: hplabs!nsc!proper!dsmith @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: Re: Discovery a lightweight? Portions of the Discovery (the OMS pods, the bay doors?) are covered with a heat resistant felt. I saw a quickie bit about it on TV. Apparently, the felt is the same type used to make tennis balls. David Smith @ Proper Unix ------------------------------ Date: 18 Sep 1984 20:43:39-EDT From: Dale.Amon at CMU-RI-FAS Subject: Drexler in Reason Magazine For those Libertarians out there, Eric Drexler's article on making a cheaper Space Station (L5 News from some months back) was cited in the Reason Magazine 'Trends' section this month. ------------------------------ Date: 8 Sep 84 15:29:27-PDT (Sat) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: decvax!mcnc!philabs!cmcl2!seismo!brl-tgr!jcp @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: Re: Discovery a lightweight? Yes Discovery is lighter than either of the first two orbiters (which are approximately the same weight). Some of the weight reduction was made by replacing the silica 'tile' surface in some areas with thinner, larger molded plates made of metal and/or composite materials. (test plates of this material were flown earlier on Challenger). The upper surface of Discover (white area) has quite a bit of this. Also, the wing structures have a few less internal struts, in non-critical areas. Some weight reduction has also been achieved thru use of different materials for the OMS pods, I believe. The total weight reduction of the orbiter is on the order of 1500 lbs. Of course, all shuttle missions recently have used the lightweight external tank, (unpainted), which shaved off 3000lbs all by itself. The idea is to increase launch payload. For instance, only Discovery and the next orbiter (Endeavor?) will be able to launch the max payload capacity ~70K lbs. The first Discovery flight had a payload of ~45K lbs I believe. (Three satellites, which didn't come back down, plus the extensible solar array assembly, which did). Also, the flight instrumentation for Discovery is simpler, (the development instrumentation having never been installed). I believe Discovery has 'head-up' displays for the commander and pilot, (the 'pilot' sits in the right seat), unlike the previous orbiters, which are being retrofitted for this. (Challenger will have them on the next mission, I believe) -JCP- ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 20-Sep-84 0431 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #311 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 311 Today's Topics: NASA Activities TOC v 15 n8 Aug. 1984 Re: Discovery flight postponed again Re: Discovery a lightweight Women shuttle pilots CACM has articles on shuttle software ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 12 Sep 84 9:51:07-PDT (Wed) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: hplabs!ames!eugene @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: NASA Activities TOC v 15 n8 Aug. 1984 Airborne Science and Applications Programs Marks 20th Anniversary (Photo of TR-2) Hughes Aircraft Nominates Payload Specialists for Shuttle Flights Former Deputy Administrator George M. Low Dies First Space Product Set to be Developed for Commercial Use (Latex) IRAS Identifiies Additional Stars with Possible Solar Systems NASA Centers Assigned Space Station Studies Improved Welding System Introduced Teach Workshops Held at NASA Centers Finalists Chosen in Shuttle Student Project (I would like to post, but do not have the time) NASA Conducts Gysy Moth Survey on East Coast Pioneer Can Make Unique Halley's Comet Observation International Search and Rescue Program Saves 223 Lives Space Shuttle Main Engine Testing Reaches Milestone Ames Aircraft Operations Consolidated Mattingly to Leave NASA for Navy Post Wear-Proof Refrigerator Completes First Year of Operations Publications Launch Schedule Patents --eugene miya NASA Ames Res. Ctr. {hplabs,dual,hao,vortex}!ames!aurora!eugene emiya@ames-vmsb.ARPA ------------------------------ Date: 11 Sep 84 23:14:53-PDT (Tue) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: hplabs!intelca!proper!mikevp @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: Re: Discovery flight postponed again I got an opportunity to visit the Vandenburg shuttle launch site about a year ago, and there just isn't any place for anyone to watch it from, whether the Air Force wants to let them or not. The launch site is on the coast, and surrounded by hills. I'm pretty sure you would get a good view of it as it rose over the hills, but the only place you could see it take off and survive is from the ocean. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 19 Sep 84 09:49:32 pdt From: Alan Fernquist Message-Id: <8409191649.AA18806@amelia.ARPA> To: space@mit-mc.ARPA Subject: Re: Discovery a lightweight OK, it looks like alot of "guesses" and "I believes" are being thrown out on the net regarding the Shuttle thermal protection system and the weight of the Orbiters. Hopefully this will explain in no uncertain terms the Orbiters' thermal protection system. NASA's Ames Research Center in Mountain View California has been continuing research into improving the Space Shuttle"s thermal protection system. Some of the new materials were installed for the second mission of the Orbiter Colombia on March 22, 1982. The Shuttle thermal protection system consists of tiles and other refractory materials applied to the outer shell of the orbiter to protect its aluminum and graphite-epoxy skin from extreme temp. Temperatures on a Space Shuttle flight may range from -110 Celsius in space to nearly 1,648 C at some points during reentry. Shuttle orbiter Colombia has had a silica glass quilt, called Advanced Flexible Reusable Surface Insulation installed over 1.85 square meters of its elevon cove, replacing the Felt Reusable Surface Insulation which originally covered the area. This felt insulation had to be replaced because temperatures in the elevon cove area reached 816 C and the felt was designed for areas no hotter than 398 C. The advanced type is tougher, lighter and cheaper than earlier tile heat shields. It was conceived by Ames and produced by Manville Building Materials Corp., Denver, Colorado. A square foot of the new insulation costs about $200, compared to approximately $1,000 a square foot for tile materials. On Challenger, the advanced flexible insulation is installed on the orbital maneuvering system pods and partially replaces the low temp. reusable surface insulation tiles developed and manufactured by Lockheed Missiles and Space Co., Sunnyvale, California. On Discovery and the future Atlantis, the advanced flexible type replaces all the low temperature insulation and parts of the felt type, covering more than 250 sq. meters. Also on the two newest orbiters, another new material called Fibrous Refractory Composite Insulation (FRCI-12, 12 pounds per cubic foot) replaces LI-2200 tiles. Both of these materials were developed by Ames and are manufactured by Lockheed. The new fibrous insulation is lighter and stronger than LI-2200. The fibrous type saves about 450 kilograms (1,000 pounds) on Discovery and Atlantis. Original Thermal Protection System: Four principal types of materials comprised the original thermal protection system: felt reusable surface insulation effective for temp. less than 398 C; low temp. reusable surface insulation tiles, covered with a white borosilicate glass coating effective from 371 C to 648 C; high temp. reusable surface insulation, covered with a black reaction-cured glass coating which is used for 648 C to in excess of 1,260 C; and reinforced carbon-carbon, effective for temp. up to 1650 C. The low and high temperature tiles come in two densities: the LI-2200, 22 pounds per cubic foot, and LI-900, nine pounds per cubic foot. The later material was developed and manufactured by Lockheed. The high temperature insulation is covered with the black, reaction-cured borosilicate glass coating developed by Ames to protect the high temp. areas, about 43 percent of the total surface of the orbiter. The white, borosilicate-coated low temp. tiles are located primarily on the upper surface of the orbiter. Enough with this typing, hope this clears things up. Alan Fernquist NASA, ARC (fernquis@ames-nas-gw) ------------------------------ Date: 14 Sep 84 10:32:15-PDT (Fri) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: hplabs!hpda!fortune!amd!decwrl!dec-rhea!dec-dvinci!fisher @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: Women shuttle pilots > When will the first woman pilot/command a shuttle? I believe that there are currently no women pilots; they are all mission specialists. Based on my memory of the astronaut application forms (didn't you fill one out too?) shuttle pilots still need to have a number of thousands of hours of flight time before applying. This means that the hiring of women pilot astronauts will always lag the hiring of women in entry-level flying positions. (Do the various military flying services have women flyers?) Burns ------------------------------ Date: 13 Sep 84 8:19:41-PDT (Thu) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: hplabs!sdcrdcf!sdcsvax!akgua!whuxle!spuxll!abnjh!u1100a!sdo @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: CACM has articles on shuttle software [I hope there aren't fifty other articles saying this] The current (September) issue of Communications of the ACM is dedicated to the Space Shuttle software and hardware, and provides some detailed descriptions of their operation. It's fascinating. -- Scott Orshan Bell Communications Research 201-981-3064 {ihnp4,allegra,pyuxww}!u1100a!sdo ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 21-Sep-84 0402 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #312 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 312 Today's Topics: Soviet Salyut Mission Space Record Re: Women shuttle pilots ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 21 Sep 1984 01:13:38EPDT From: glenn at ll-vlsi To: space@mit-mc Subject: Soviet Salyut Mission Space Record The current Soviet Salyut space station mission has now resulted in 3 men being up there for 225 days, two weeks beyond the world's previous record of 211 days. According to Russian reports the crew looked well during a recent medical exame. There have also been no reports of them preparing to return during the next landing window which will be about Oct 1 to 7. Since the current Soyuz T-11 space craft attached to the station has been up there since April it is at the limits of the time the Soviets set for such craft in space, about 140 days. This suggest that either this crew will be returning then or else a new team will be sent up to visit them and bring a fresh capsule. There has been some suggestions by observers here that a crew rotation may take place, allowing them to have a station manned for a full year even if not with the same men. It is interesting to note how little notice this mission has gotten here. The fact that a new record had been set received only a 4 line note back on page 27 of Aviation Week, probably the best source of space information in magazines. The Russian naturally said that this put them in the lead in space. Interestingly they also pointed out the this shows that a flight to Mars is possible. 200 odd days is about the duration of the outward bound portion of a Mars mission. I personally suspect that they will keep this crew up for one year if possible. One indication of this is that the Soviets have just created a new metal for accomplishments in astronautics. The prize will be awarded next year for the first time in menory of the 51st birthdate of Yuri Gagarin in March 1985. Now next March happens to be the first landing window for the current crew if they spend more than a full year in space. Certainly they would have the right to claim to be ahead in that area if that happened. After all with NASA's current plans it will not be until 10 years from now that this country will keep a man in orbit for one year, if even then. Funny, it only took us 8 years to go from a suborbital flight to putting men on the Moon, and now it takes 10 years to do much less. Glenn Chapman ------------------------------ Date: 17 Sep 84 12:19:28-PDT (Mon) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: hplabs!oliveb!olivee!oliven!hawk @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: Re: Women shuttle pilots >(Do the various military flying services have women flyers?) For non combat planes, yes. rick [hplabs|zehntel|fortune|ios|tolerant|allegra|tymix]!oliveb!oliven!hawk ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 23-Sep-84 0403 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #313 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 313 Today's Topics: Challenger countdown rehearsal ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 17 Sep 84 10:03:41-PDT (Mon) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: ihnp4!ihlts!rjnoe @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: Challenger countdown rehearsal CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) -- A dress rehearsal countdown for the early October launch of the space shuttle Challenger went off without a hitch September 15, NASA officials said. The test began Friday shortly after 6 p.m. EDT and ended shortly after 11 a.m. Saturday, at the time that Challenger's three rocket engines would have ignited had the launch been real. Seven astronauts participated in the final hours of the rehearsal countdown, entering the cabin around 8:30 a.m. EDT. Earlier in the morning, Robert L. Crippen, commander of what will be the 13th shuttle mission, practiced landings in a jet that has been modified so it handles much like the shuttle. Crippen was pilot of the first shuttle flight on April 12, 1981, and also was commander of the seventh and eleventh missions. The Oct. 4 scheduled launch will be the first time that seven crew members are sent into space in one craft and the first time that two women are part of the crew. It will be Sally K. Ride's second trip into space. She was the first American woman to go into orbit on the seventh shuttle flight last year. The other members of the crew are pilot Jon A. McBride; mission specialists Kathryn D. Sullivan and David C. Leestma; and payload specialists Marc Garneau of Canada and Australian-born Paul D. Scully-Power, an oceanographer. Among the goals of the flight, scheduled to last eight days and five hours, will be a satellite deployment and several Earth observation experiments. Challenger is scheduled to return to Kennedy Space Center for a landing at the center's 15,000-foot long runway. -- Roger Noe ihnp4!ihlts!rjnoe ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 24-Sep-84 0403 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #314 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 314 Today's Topics: Conjunction question ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 21 Sep 84 5:50:43-PDT (Fri) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: ihnp4!houxm!hogpc!houca!sab @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: Conjunction question A friend asked me to post this question: When will the next conjunction of Saturn and Jupiter be visible in the northern hemisphere? Thanx. Scott ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 27-Sep-84 0405 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #315 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 315 Today's Topics: Soviet Salyut Mission to End Re: The view out the shuttle windows Re: SATCOM polarization Re: Space Toilets IUS fixed ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 26 Sep 1984 18:14:55EPDT From: glenn at ll-vlsi To: space@mit-mc Subject: Soviet Salyut Mission to End The Russians have announced that the crew of the current Salyut mission is preparing to depart the space station. Such messages are usually given these days one or two weeks before they land. That should give them a total of about 240 days in orbit. This is in agreement with the Soviet's previous missions for record space durations. Each one of those tends to be 30 to 40 days longer than the previous record. There was no suggestion in the Soviet press reports that a replacement mission was being sent up. Indeed as there has been no mention of the removal of the last Progress supply vessel it is probably still attached to the station preventing such a link up. O.K. I goofed it in my previous comments. It really did appear that they were going to try for a quantum leap in mission duration this time. Instead they played it safe and stuck to their older mission style of incremental increases. Glenn Chapman ------------------------------ Date: 11 Sep 84 11:02:45-PDT (Tue) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: ihnp4!ihlts!rjnoe @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: Re: The view out the shuttle windows > in the earliest shuttle missions, . . . a pink glow was reported > out the windows during reentry. . . . I suspect that some of this > footage and future IMAX cameras will be showing this in the upcoming > Air and Space Museum film. I only saw this on a B&W monitor, but I > am certain it will be quite a gas! > --eugene miya But an incandescent gas, of course. :-) -- "It's only by NOT taking the human race seriously that I retain what fragments of my once considerable mental powers I still possess." Roger Noe ihnp4!ihlts!rjnoe ------------------------------ Date: 12 Sep 84 21:05:16-PDT (Wed) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: ihnp4!houxm!mhuxl!ulysses!allegra!mouton!karn @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: Re: SATCOM polarization The direction of polarization of a radio wave always refers to the electric field. (It's easy to remember, a vertical whip antenna produces vertical polarization.) The "vertical" and "horizontal" polarizations of a geostationary communications satellite are referenced to the spacecraft as you would see it if you were lying down directly under it (on the equator) with your head pointed north. For the spin-stabilized birds (HS-376, SBS, Westar, etc) this is also the position in which you usually see the spacecraft in ground tests, and when it is mounted on the launcher. Of course, you have to do a coordinate rotation when adjusting your TVRO feed horn, but it is easy when you visualize what is going on. Phil ------------------------------ Date: 13 Sep 84 13:19:00-PDT (Thu) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: pur-ee!uiucdcs!uok!jsmcginn @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: Re: Space Toilets The next time you're in a book store, look for a book titled "The Space Shuttle Operator's Manual". It has a brief, non-technical explanation on the operation of the 'space toilet'...it even has pictures!! Gee. j ------------------------------ Date: 18 Sep 84 10:30:50-PDT (Tue) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: ihnp4!ihlts!rjnoe @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: IUS fixed Boeing Aerospace Co. announced that the Inertial Upper Stage design has been fixed. The IUS was used 17 months ago to deploy TDRS-A, the first tracking and data relay satellite, into a geosynchronous orbit but there was a failure in the IUS motor during its burn. Small maneuvering motors were employed to get TDRS-A into its intended orbit. The Air Force will use an IUS - the most powerful U.S. upper stage - in December to deploy an undisclosed payload from the shuttle orbiter Challenger. Another IUS will be used next February to deploy TDRS-B. -- Roger Noe ihnp4!ihlts!rjnoe ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 28-Sep-84 0403 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #316 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 316 Today's Topics: NASA and Women Spacewalkers Re: Conjunction question ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 27 Sep 1984 15:34:10EPDT From: glenn at ll-vlsi To: space@mit-mc Subject: NASA and Women Spacewalkers An article in the Wall Street Journal (Sept 26) suggests that NASA not really that interested in getting women working in space with spacesuits. NASA now is using a set of off-the-rack spacesuits which come in sizes ranging from extra-small to extra-large. When they bought the suits the only extra-small one purchased was for test use on earth only. However five of the eight women astronauts take that size, and hence cannot do EVA's. All 66 male astronauts fit in working suits. NASA says that it did this to save money, but that does not seem reasonable. They could probably got the $600,000 needed just from saying to the congress that this would be a positive step for women's equality in the new realm of space. Glenn Chapman ------------------------------ Date: 27 Sep 84 11:30:22 PDT (Thursday) From: Lynn.es@XEROX.ARPA Subject: Re: Conjunction question To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC.ARPA cc: Lynn.es@XEROX.ARPA, ihnp4!houxm!hogpc!houca!sab@UCB-VAX.ARPA Saturn and Jupiter conjunct (is that the right verb?) every twenty years, usually once, but occasionally a triple in quick succession (few months apart). Such conjunctions are almost always visible in both north/south entire hemispheres, at least within a day of conjunction, with the exception of some of the polar regions. I say almost because maybe 10% of the time the conjunction occurs when they are essentially behind the sun as seen from the earth. I remember observing a Saturn-Jupiter conjuction a few years ago (3 maybe?), so it is a long wait for the next one. I can look up the date tomorrow if "about 17 years" isn't close enough. /Don Lynn ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 29-Sep-84 0404 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #317 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 317 Today's Topics: Shuttle Enterprise in New Orleans Space Videodisks ACM lecture on NASA's spacecraft computers Female Spacewalkers ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 28 Sep 84 10:01 EDT From: Chris Jones Subject: Shuttle Enterprise in New Orleans To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC.ARPA Message-ID: <840928140105.145672@MIT-MULTICS.ARPA> I'm going to be in New Orleans from October 7th to 10th, and thought I'd like to take in a little of the World's Fair; specifically I'd like to check out the shuttle Enterprise there. Does anyone have any info about it, like is it just there, or can one get inside, or what? ------------------------------ Message-ID: <32404@Wayne-MTS> Date: Sun, 23 Sep 84 00:12:04 EST From: Michael_D'Alessandro%Wayne-MTS%UMich-MTS.Mailnet@MIT-MULTICS.ARPA To: space@MIT-MC.ARPA Subject: Space Videodisks There was mention in a previous digest about a laserdisk called "SPACE ARCHIVE: STS Missions 4, 5, 6." Where can these be obtained from? Also, are VHS format videotapes of the same material available ? Michael ------------------------------ Message-ID: <32405@Wayne-MTS> Date: Sun, 23 Sep 84 00:15:08 EST From: Michael_D'Alessandro%Wayne-MTS%UMich-MTS.Mailnet@MIT-MULTICS.ARPA To: space@MIT-MC.ARPA Subject: ACM lecture on NASA's spacecraft computers Last week here at Wayne State University in Detroit we had a lecture by Dr. James Tomayko of Wichita State University on NASA's manned spacecraft computers. Dr. Tomayko is writing a book for NASA on the history of NASA's manned and unmanned spacecraft computers. The book will be available from the GPO sometime in 1986. However, Dr. Tomayko is touring the country as part of the ACM's lecture circuit, talking about NASA's computers. He gives an outstanding lecture which I highly recommend. Topics covered include: - the Gemini Digital Flight Computer - Apollo flight computer - Skylab Telescope Mount Computer - Space Shuttle's computing system - Galileo computer system I do not know where his lecture schedule will take him. I suggest contacting your local ACM chapter to see if he will be appearing in your area. If he's not scheduled to appear this year, ask them to request him in future years. Definitely a must see. For those interested in the shuttle computer systems, the September issue of the Communications of the ACM contains 3 indepth articles on the shuttle's computer systems. Fascinating reading, and also highly recommended. For example, did you know that the shuttle's 5 APS-101/4 Pi computers are really mini-IBM 370's that have magnetic core memory? Were you aware how easy it is to crash the entire shuttle redundant set of 4 computers? Read the articles to find out! Michael ------------------------------ Date: 28 Sep 84 1207 PDT From: Tom Wadlow Subject: Female Spacewalkers To: space@MIT-MC.ARPA If I am not mistaken, Kathryn Sullivan will be spacewalking on the next Shuttle mission. Even if this turns out not to be the case, she has certainly had lots of pictures taken of her suited up in the practice tank. ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest ******************* 30-Sep-84 0403 OTA SPACE Digest V4 #318 To: SPACE@MIT-MC Reply-To: Space-Enthusiasts@MIT-MC SPACE Digest Volume 4 : Issue 318 Today's Topics: Re: Space Toilets ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 18 Sep 84 15:31:54-PDT (Tue) To: space @ Mit-Mc.arpa From: decvax!ittvax!dcdwest!sdcsvax!akgua!uf-csv!uf-csg!mark @ Ucb-Vax.arpa Subject: Re: Space Toilets If you need to indulge in gratuitous, misogynistic aspersions on women, you might confine them to "net.flame," so as not to offend nearly all the readers on the net. Your comment, Alan, is unredeemed even by putative humor. ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest *******************