From ota Thu Jun 16 03:07:33 1988 Received: by angband.s1.gov id AA21242; Thu, 16 Jun 88 03:07:16 PDT id AA21242; Thu, 16 Jun 88 03:07:16 PDT Date: Thu, 16 Jun 88 03:07:16 PDT From: Ted Anderson Message-Id: <8806161007.AA21242@angband.s1.gov> To: Space@angband.s1.gov Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #254 SPACE Digest Volume 8 : Issue 254 Today's Topics: SPACE Digest V8 #231 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Sender: "Jeffrey_D._Kane.ESXC15"@xerox.com Date: 25 May 88 10:53:09 PDT (Wednesday) Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #231 From: ota@angband.s1.gov Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov GVGVGVGVGVGVGVGVGVGVGVGVGVGVGVGVGVGVGVGVGVGVGVGVGV From: Ted Anderson To: Space@angband.s1.gov Reply-To: Space@angband.s1.gov Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #231 Return-Path: Redistributed: XeroxSpace^.x Received: from angband.s1.gov by Xerox.COM ; 24 MAY 88 21:20:19 PDT Received: by angband.s1.gov id AA06585; Tue, 24 May 88 20:05:09 PDT id AA06585; Tue, 24 May 88 20:05:09 PDT Original-Date: Tue, 24 May 88 20:05:09 PDT Message-Id: <8805250305.AA06585@angband.s1.gov> GVGVGVGVGVGVGVGVGVGVGVGVGVGVGVGVGVGVGVGVGVGVGVGVGV SPACE Digest Volume 8 : Issue 231 Today's Topics: Group for Space Camp Re: Shooting the Moon Re: Shooting the Moon Re: Shooting the Moon Re: Cometesimals (was: Millions of comets hit Earth) Nevada fuel plant explosion runway designations Re: Nevada fuel plant explosion Re: runway designations Re: runway designations Re: Nevada fuel plant explosion Re: Nevada fuel plant explosion Re: Nevada fuel plant explosion Re: Is it CBS or NASA? SRM Fuel Composition (was:Re: Nevada fuel plant explosion) Re: Is it CBS or NASA? Re: Is it CBS or NASA? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 5 May 88 03:37:42 GMT From: ulysses!terminus!picard@ucbvax.berkeley.edu (Luc) Subject: Group for Space Camp I lead a group of folks down to adult Space Academy level II each fall. This is a three day program leading to flights in the Shuttle simulator. The dates we are attending this year are October 7-9. The cost is $405 (10% off). I need to have all the money in by June 1. If you're interested, send email or call me at: 703-361-1290 (h) 703-689-5915 (w) ++rich ------------------------------ Date: 4 May 88 20:10:14 GMT From: aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!lear@rutgers.edu (eliot lear) Subject: Re: Shooting the Moon We can use Mars to solve the world's parking problem ;-) In article <1662@bigtex.uucp> james@bigtex.uucp (James Van Artsdalen) writes: > Why do it the expensive way when you can save money for other projects? Ohyeahsure. It reminds me of times when the military considered ABombs as practical solutions to all of our problems. Remember the days of John Foster Dulles and the French? Does science entirely understand the intended effects AND the side effects that would be caused by such an explosion? After all, in the long run, which way is the expensive way? Eliot Lear [lear@rutgers.edu] ------------------------------ Date: 4 May 88 16:15:28 GMT From: aplcen!aplcomm!stdc.jhuapl.edu!jwm@mimsy.umd.edu (Jim Meritt) Subject: Re: Shooting the Moon In article <5121@pucc.Princeton.EDU> EWTILENI@pucc.Princeton.EDU writes: >1. EXPLOSION ON THE PAD: Folks, the Challenger disaster was bad, really >bad. But imagine if it had a nuclear warhead on board. Bye, bye South >Florida! A spaceship is one of the least stable places to keep a >warhead! Boy, I bet you have a tough time sleeping at night! What is the difference between: Rocket propelled vehicle capable of lifting off of the surface of a planet and travelling at barely suborbital velocities above the bulk of the atmosphere and conducting a controlled re-entry and a spaceship? (the first is a description of an ICBM) What is the connection between "a nuclear warhead" on the Challenger and "Bye, bye South Florida"? jwm@aplvax.jhuapl.edu 128.244.65.5 (James W. Meritt) ------------------------------ Date: 4 May 88 19:40:09 GMT From: cfa!wyatt@husc6.harvard.edu (Bill Wyatt) Subject: Re: Shooting the Moon In article <5121@pucc.Princeton.EDU>, EWTILENI@pucc.Princeton.EDU (Eric Tilenius) writes: [...] > I think the Life-on-Mars opposition to this argument has been > adequately stated, but I wanted to point out a couple of extra > arguments against this which I sent Paul through EMAIL (did you get > it, Paul?): > > 1. EXPLOSION ON THE PAD: Folks, the Challenger disaster was bad, > really bad. But imagine if it had a nuclear warhead on board. Bye, > bye South Florida! A spaceship is one of the least stable places to > keep a warhead! I agree that the nuking Mars is a BAD IDEA, but the above is *very* unlikely to be a problem. Warheads just don't go off until armed, and they are not armed until well after launch. Remember the H-bomb dropped accidentally from a B52 over Spain in the 60's? Remember the Titan that blew up in its silo in Arkansas, tossing the warhead almost a mile? Bill UUCP: {husc6,ihnp4,cmcl2,mit-eddie}!harvard!cfa!wyatt Wyatt ARPA: wyatt@cfa.harvard.edu ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 11 May 88 18:22:49 -0400 (EDT) From: Joe Keane X-Andrew-Message-Size: 579+0 Subject: Re: Cometesimals (was: Millions of comets hit Earth) In some article spar!freeman@decwrl.dec.com (Jay Freeman) writes: > Huh?? When you whack on something hard, you expect a louder noise, > not a different pitch, than when you whack on it more gently. The > analogy here is Moon <-> bell (or drumhead, or tabletop); LEM impact > <-> little hammer blow; impact of meteoroid or cometesimal <-> big > hammer blow. There are some natural resonant frequencies. A small impact tends to stimulate the higher ones, while a large impact tends to stimulate the lower ones. So you don't get different pitches, just a different distribution. --Joe ------------------------------ Date: 5 May 88 06:43:37 GMT From: lim@csvax.caltech.edu (Kian-Tat Lim) Subject: Nevada fuel plant explosion By now, you've all heard about the explosion at the hypergolic fuel plant in Nevada. This is supposed to cause further setbacks for the already-lame U.S. space program. Some early questions: 1) Shuttle uses monomethyl hydrazine and nitrogen tetroxide for OMS/RCS. Does the reported sodium perchlorate have anything to do with this? If not, shouldn't it be unaffected? 2) What fuels do other launch systems use: Titan, Scout, Ariane? Kian-Tat Lim (ktl@wagvax.caltech.edu, GEnie: K.LIM1) ------------------------------ Date: 3 May 88 19:53:10 GMT From: nbires!isis!scicom!wats@ucbvax.berkeley.edu (Bruce Watson) Subject: runway designations In the TV program SPACEFLIGHT there is a sequence of the shuttle landing on runway 23 at Edwards (There! That got it in sci.space). Runways are designated by the magnetic azimuth in 10 degree increments with the 0 omitted. Since the magnetic pole wanders have there been runways whose designations had to be changed? ------------------------------ Date: 5 May 88 17:23:49 GMT From: concertina!fiddler@sun.com (Steve Hix) Subject: Re: Nevada fuel plant explosion If sodium perchlorate was reported, correct the reporter: that should have been ammonium perchlorate. It's the oxidizer used in the SRBs. I think most of the rest of the active ingredients is taken up with aluminum powder. (I assume that the binder, sort of like synthetic rubber, is comparatively inactive.) As to how much effect on the space program, I suppose it depends on what percentage of the total supply of fuel comes out of that one facility. United Technologies, just a bit south and east of here, makes the solid booster for the Titan-4, and they sort of indicated that their supplier is not the one who had the accident. > 2) What fuels do other launch systems use: Titan, Scout, Ariane? a. Titan: Hydrazine and nitrogen tetroxide for the liquid engines, and solid boosters using ammonium perchlorate and aluminum for the strap-ons. b. Scout: Solid fuel. Not sure what type, but guess amm.perch., etc. c. Ariane: LOX and (?) kerosene. Maybe LH2. The shuttle main engines, btw, use LOX + LH2. ------------------------------ Date: 5 May 88 14:11:45 GMT From: cat.cmu.edu!dep@pt.cs.cmu.edu (David Pugh) Subject: Re: runway designations Yes. Two airports I know of (AGC & ZZV, I think) had their runways relabeled. You could see the old numbers painted out beneath the new numbers. ------------------------------ Date: 5 May 88 22:16:10 GMT From: portal!cup.portal.com!edg@uunet.uu.net Subject: Re: runway designations Yes, Runway designations change and variation lines move, and VORs get reset every few years. I don't know many of the details. One thing to remember is that runway designations are quite approximate. For example, San Jose has three parallel runways numbered 30L, 30R and 29. The actual runway heading is probably somewhere between them. OAKland's 33 is actually on a heading of 326 degrees. Consult your local instrument approach plate for the actual runway heading. -edg edg@cup.portal.com ------------------------------ Date: 6 May 88 23:20:37 GMT From: ubvax!unisv!vanpelt@lll-winken.llnl.gov (Mike Van Pelt) Subject: Re: Nevada fuel plant explosion In article <52155@sun.uucp> fiddler%concertina@Sun.COM (Steve Hix) writes: >If sodium perchlorate was reported, correct the reporter: that should >have been ammonium perchlorate. It's the oxidizer used in the SRBs. I >think most of the rest of the active ingredients is taken up with >aluminum powder. (I assume that the binder, sort of like synthetic >rubber, is comparatively inactive.) The butyl rubber binder is also fuel; it burns quite nicely, though not as exothermic as aluminum dust. Starstruck's hybrid rocked used butyl rubber as a fuel and LO2 as oxidizer. I used to have the formula for the SRB propellant. It also contains some epoxy (about 5%?) and about 1% iron oxide as a 'combustion enhancer'. (Aluminum dust + iron oxide = thermite.) Mike Van Pelt ------------------------------ Date: 6 May 88 18:27:28 GMT From: ulysses!thumper!karn@ucbvax.berkeley.edu (Phil R. Karn) Subject: Re: Nevada fuel plant explosion > a. Titan: Hydrazine and nitrogen tetroxide for the liquid engines, and > solid boosters using ammonium perchlorate and aluminum for the > strap-ons. Strictly speaking, the fuel for Titan is called Aerozine-50. This is a 50-50 mixture of straight hydrazine (N2H4) plus unsymmetrical dimethyl hydrazine (UDMH -- take off the two hydrogens on one of the nitrogens in straight hydrazine and replace them with two methyl groups). Water is also present in small amounts, so it's really 49.5% N2H4 + 49.5% UDMH + 1% H2O. Straight hydrazine is denser than the organic variations (i.e., you can cram more of it into a tank), but it is less stable and it freezes at too high a temperature. The Aerozine-50 mixture is a good compromise. AMSAT Oscar-10 used UDMH in its kick motor; Phase 3-C (due to go up in a few weeks) will use Aerozine-50, mainly because its greater density will result in more kick per unit tank volume. The payload is heavier this time, but the same size tank and engine are being used. > c. Ariane: LOX and (?) kerosene. Maybe LH2. The Ariane first and second stages use UDMH + N2O4. The third stage is cryogenic; it uses LH2 + LO2. Kerosene is not used anywhere on the Ariane. It's easy to tell from a launch picture when hypergolic fuels like those used on Titan, Ariane and Proton are being used. The plume is almost transparent, unlike those of kerosene-fueled rockets that emit yellow-white plumes, or solid-fueled rockets that emit lots of dense white aluminum oxide smoke. Phil ------------------------------ Date: 6 May 88 21:37:33 GMT From: mnetor!utzoo!henry@uunet.uu.net (Henry Spencer) Subject: Re: Nevada fuel plant explosion > c. Ariane: LOX and (?) kerosene. Maybe LH2. Tsk, tsk, two out of three wrong. Ariane first and second stages use nitrogen tetroxide and one of the hydrazine variants (UDMH I think). The third stage is LOX/LH2. Oh yeah, and solid strap-ons for the newer variants (also still-newer liquid strap-ons but I don't know what they burn, probably N2O4/UDMH). To add to the list... d. Atlas-Centaur: LOX/kerosene in Atlas, LOX/LH2 in Centaur. e. Delta: LOX/kerosene plus solid strap-ons. Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology {ihnp4,decvax,uunet!mnetor}!utzoo!henry ------------------------------ Date: 5 May 88 19:15:00 GMT From: silber@p.cs.uiuc.edu Subject: Re: Is it CBS or NASA? >By "victims of male technology" I understood a condemnation of the >macho attitude that led NASA not to include any sort of escape >mechanism in the shuttle. Which of course would imply some sort of >cowardice and fear of battle and might be misused if someone chickened >out and pushed the "let me out" button...right??? Can't have those >heros chickening out, can we? >Valerie Maslak Every U.S. spacecraft before the shuttle had an escape system. From what I understand, the difficulty with including one in the shuttle was that there was no way of including a system of more than marginal survivability that was usable in the boost phase. (For aerodynamic reasons an escape tower was impossible, likewise for an orbiter separation system. Ejection seats were used on the first flight, but would be to bulky to provide for all the crew, and if there is one thing NASA would not want it would be for the flight crew to punch out leaving the passengers.) The current system (the pole and parachutes) would only be of use either on the pad or in gliding (and subsonic) flight, and appears to be more of a PR scheme than anything useful, considering that those are the two safest portions of the launch. ami silberman ------------------------------ Date: 6 May 88 12:33:47 GMT From: ucsdhub!hp-sdd!ncr-sd!ncrlnk!ncrwic!encad!mjohnson@sdcsvax.ucsd.edu (Mark Johnson) Subject: SRM Fuel Composition (was:Re: Nevada fuel plant explosion) The approximate solid fuel mix used in most of the various solid rocket motors goes something like this: 80% ammonium perchlorate 10% powdered aluminum (which coincidentally gives the white exhaust) 10% HTPB (Hydroxyl-terminated polybutadiene, a polymer which serves as both fuel and plastic binder, and which not coincidentally provides a good deal of energy into the bargain (15-20% more than earlier solid recipes of polyurethane base and similar ratios). My percentages may be a bit off, but this is basically what's used. Mark Johnson (mjohnson@ncrwic.UUCP) ------------------------------ Date: 10 May 88 02:01:26 GMT From: killer!bigtex!james@eddie.mit.edu (James Van Artsdalen) Subject: Re: Is it CBS or NASA? IN article <74700087@uiucdcsp>, silber@uiucdcsp.cs.uiuc.edu wrote: > Every U.S. spacecraft before the shuttle had an escape system. In principle at least, I believe they could also extinguish the rockets, which the shuttle can't (SRBs). > The current system (the pole and parachutes) would only be of use > either on the pad or in gliding (and subsonic) flight, and appears to > be more of a PR scheme than anything useful, considering that those > are the two safest portions of the launch. Is the pole really useful on the pad? Isn't there a tower in the way? :-) Even the ejection seats originally in place were not useful in ascent phase. Out of curiosity, what were the windows for the previous escape systems? How long before the rockets were moving too fast or too high? Question: Does anyone know when SRB separation occurs, height & velocity? I've been having trouble finding out. James R. Van Artsdalen ------------------------------ Date: 10 May 88 10:25:25 GMT From: lim@csvax.caltech.edu (Kian-Tat Lim) Subject: Re: Is it CBS or NASA? In article <1870@bigtex.uucp> james@bigtex.UUCP (James Van Artsdalen) writes: >Question: Does anyone know when SRB separation occurs, height & >velocity? I've been having trouble finding out. According to the Space Shuttle Operator's Manual, "By the time the solid motors consume their propellants (T + 2 minutes and 12 seconds) you have reached Mach 4.5 and an altitude of 28 miles (45 kilometers)." Kian-Tat Lim (ktl@wagvax.caltech.edu, GEnie: K.LIM1) ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest V8 #231 ******************* ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest V8 #254 *******************