Return-path: X-Andrew-Authenticated-as: 0;andrew.cmu.edu;Network-Mail Received: from andrew.cmu.edu via trymail for +dist+/afs/andrew.cmu.edu/usr1/ota/space/space.dl@andrew.cmu.edu (->+dist+/afs/andrew.cmu.edu/usr1/ota/space/space.dl) (->ota+space.digests) ID ; Fri, 23 Sep 88 06:39:13 -0400 (EDT) Received: from andrew.cmu.edu via qmail ID ; Fri, 23 Sep 88 06:38:36 -0400 (EDT) Received: by andrew.cmu.edu (5.54/3.15) id for +dist+/afs/andrew.cmu.edu/usr1/ota/space/space.dl; Fri, 23 Sep 88 06:36:47 EDT Received: by angband.s1.gov id AA08370; Fri, 23 Sep 88 01:07:54 PDT id AA08370; Fri, 23 Sep 88 01:07:54 PDT Date: Fri, 23 Sep 88 01:07:54 PDT From: Ted Anderson Message-Id: <8809230807.AA08370@angband.s1.gov> To: Space+@andrew.cmu.edu Reply-To: Space+@andrew.cmu.edu Subject: SPACE Digest V8 #373 SPACE Digest Volume 8 : Issue 373 Today's Topics: Re: "It's because of all those satellites..." Re: access to space; how to deny Re: Are we ready for terraforming??? Re: Another Titan failure? Re: Devolution (Was discussion on overpopulation) Re: Are we ready for terraforming??? Re: The sun as a trashcan (was : Plutonium) Re: space exploration/exploitation Re: Shuttle names--old and new STS-26 and Manifest Releases Posted RE space exploitation/exploration ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 7 Sep 88 15:19:23 GMT From: agate!soup.ssl.berkeley.edu!gckaplan@ucbvax.berkeley.edu (George Kaplan) Subject: Re: "It's because of all those satellites..." In article <7844@cit-vax.Caltech.Edu> mangler@cit-vax.Caltech.Edu (Don Speck) writes: >This last weekend my Mom mentioned to me that the weather where >she lives is unusual this summer (it is here too), and she posited >that global weather is messed up "because of all those satellites". > >Although I hastened to explain that it's caused by pollution, >I wonder how prevalent this misperception is among U.S. voters? > >Do you suppose that one could get that idea by seeing the conspicuous >smoke and fire of solid rockets? > >Don Speck speck@vlsi.caltech.edu {amdahl,ames}!cit-vax!speck How about the satellite weather images that can be seen every day on television news? I think there has always been some confusion between predicting the weather and causing it. Certainly that's a common theme in casual conversation. Some local TV weather forecasters even use this theme themselves, taking "credit" for good weather and apologizing for storms. It's a simple extension of the cause-and-effect of weather reporting to blame the "satellites" for the odd global weather those satellites report. - George C. Kaplan gkaplan@sag4.ssl.berkeley.edu ..!ucbvax!sag4.ssl!gkaplan ------------------------------ Date: 7 Sep 88 18:21:22 GMT From: jpl-devvax!lwall@elroy.jpl.nasa.gov (Larry Wall) Subject: Re: access to space; how to deny In article <8809070005.AA02422@angband.s1.gov> BEB@UNO.BITNET (Bruce Bettis) writes: : att!chinet!mcdchg!clyde!watmath!water!utgpu!utzoo!henry@ucbvax.berkeley.edu : (Henry Spencer) writes: : > ...but there's nothing : >impossible about shooting down a launcher with more mundane weapons. : : Like, say, a sneaky Marielito (to keep the threat Cuban :-) with a slingshot : and a bag of rocks? (How mundane can you get?) No doubt a few well-placed : shots would at the least scrub a mission. Particularly this "first" Shuttle : launch... How deep a hole would you have to drill in the side of an SRB to create a situation virtually indistinguishable from what happened to Challenger? How long would it take? Do those who assemble SRBs have security clearances? How well guarded are those SRBs? Would a drill hole be detected? What about the SRB nozzles? Would a hole in one of those lose the mission? How much disparity in thrust can the stack put up with? Can the hold-down bolts keep the thing from taking off if one SRB fires and the other doesn't? Are there any wires to clip that would have this effect, and go undetected? What would be the effect of a well-timed model airplane with a zip gun putting a tracer bullet into the ET as it was lifting off? Just bein' unusually paranoid, as usual. Larry Wall lwall@jpl-devvax.jpl.nasa.gov ------------------------------ Date: 7 Sep 88 18:24:37 GMT From: concertina!fiddler@sun.com (Steve Hix) Subject: Re: Are we ready for terraforming??? In article <44600019@pyr1.cs.ucl.ac.uk>, william@pyr1.cs.ucl.ac.uk writes: > > >I don't recall hearing of any similar effects after World War II, > >during which all major cities of Germany and Japan were converted > >into soot and CO2. > > The major difference between a nuclear blast or eruption and a > conventional bomb attack is that the latter is a slow gradual effect > using low power weapons. Nothing is thrown very far. Any dust that > is formed is not kicked into the upper atmosphere with the old bombs. It's not the size of the bomb that's the important factor, but the size of the resulting fire: the firestorms of Dresden and Tokyo were quite comparable to the expected results from nuking any major city in the present. A typical attack began with some high-explosive loads to scatter debris, break gas and water mains, and hinder fire fighting later, followed by incendiary loads to start fires over a large area. During the Tokyo attacks, there was substantial turbulence (and fairly large objects) reported at and above 35,000 feet. The bombers attacking the city came in at low level (around 8,000 feet), but there were aircraft following the raid for photography and post-raid evaluation that came over at much higher altitudes. ------------------------------ Date: 7 Sep 88 17:38:54 GMT From: vsi1!daver!mfgfoc!mike@ames.arc.nasa.gov (Mike Thompson) Subject: Re: Another Titan failure? From article <607@cmx.npac.syr.edu>, by anand@cmx.npac.syr.edu (Rangachari Anand): > > I just heard on radio news (mutual) that the Vortex spy satellite launched > from Vandenberg on a Titan 4 has failed to reach the correct orbit. > Apparently the third stage failed. Does anyone have more details? > > I am sure the Military must be getting pretty desperate by now. I remember > that a Titan carrying a KH11 exploded right after Challenger. I also > remember a TV news broadcast where they mentioned that only one KH11 is > left in orbit. > > R. Anand > Internet: anand@amax.npac.syr.edu > Bitnet: ranand@sunrise When I heard that the satellite failed to reach orbit I thought that it was another NASA/Air Force Blunder, but then I got to thinking, what better way to throw the Ruskies off than by anouncing that the top secret spy satellite failed to reach proper orbit. After all, an announcement of another failed booster would be believable enough. I would be willing to bet that the Ruskies are watching (tracking) the satellite very carefully no matter which orbit it goes into. Perhaps if the satellite had really failed, it would not be announced to the public so that the Soviets would think that we had a satellite up their. Perhaps I have read to many spy novels and who really know what our government is up to. Could the Titan that exploded after Challenger have been a smokescreen too. Naa, to far fetched.. Mike Thompson P.S. My opinions are in no way a reflection of the opinions of my employer. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Michael P. Thompson FOCUS Semiconductor Systems, Inc. net: (sun!daver!mfgfoc!engfoc!mike) 570 Maude Court att: (408) 738-0600 ext 370 Sunnyvale, CA 94086 USA --------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------ Date: 6 Sep 88 18:01:03 GMT From: mcvax!ukc!etive!hwcs!zen!frank@uunet.uu.net (Frank Wales) Subject: Re: Devolution (Was discussion on overpopulation) In article <454@umbio.MIAMI.EDU> aem@Mthvax.Miami.Edu (a.e.mossberg) writes: >In <195@uceng.UC.EDU>, wrote: >>For an interesting alarmist look at devolution, read _The Marching Morons_. >>I can't recall the author just now, > >I don't have it handy, but I think it was a story by Harry Harrison. "The Marching Morons" was actually written by C.M. Kornbluth; the last time I saw it published was in an early 'Omni' issue, maybe V1N2. Memorable Frank. ------------------------------ Date: 5 Sep 88 17:58:00 GMT From: mcvax!ukc!dcl-cs!nott-cs!pyr1.cs.ucl.ac.uk!william@uunet.uu.net Subject: Re: Are we ready for terraforming??? >I don't recall hearing of any similar effects after World War II, >during which all major cities of Germany and Japan were converted >into soot and CO2. Were they though? Many cities had their centres turned to rubble, but I think the amount of burning was fairly limited - perhaps not generating as much burnt product as a few ordinary power stations. (I don't know this though - anybody know?) The major difference between a nuclear blast or eruption and a conventional bomb attack is that the latter is a slow gradual effect using low power weapons. Nothing is thrown very far. Any dust that is formed is not kicked into the upper atmosphere with the old bombs. ... Bill ************************************************************************ Bill Witts, CS Dept. * Nel Mezzo del cammin di nostra vita UCL, London, Errrp * mi ritrovai per una selva oscura william@uk.ac.ucl.cs(UK) * che la diritta via era smarrita. william@cs.ucl.ac.uk(US) *********************************************** ------------------------------ Date: 7 Sep 88 21:05:42 GMT From: elbereth.rutgers.edu!aramis.rutgers.edu!klaatu.rutgers.edu!josh@rutgers.edu (J Storrs Hall) Subject: Re: The sun as a trashcan (was : Plutonium) > 1) We could send Pu garbage *out* of our solar system. > 2) We could use the Space Shuttle to get spacecrafts payloaded with Pu to > orbit and then out of our solar system. This as a terrible idea! Equivalent to throwing your household garbage into the street or dumping toxic waste into the oceans. Does absolutely nobody on this newsgroup have any sense of proportion at all? Lets consider near interstellar space, say within 4 LY, having a volume of 2e50 cubic meters. If we had an all-nuclear economy we would produce 1e6 m^3 of HL waste every century. Now the volume of the oceans is something on the order of 1e17 m^3. Thus to equal the injection of a century of nuclear waste into near interstellar space we are talking about dumping 0.5e-27 cubic meters of waste into the oceans, which is to say half a cubic nanometer, or the size of single molecule of sugar. --JoSH ------------------------------ Date: 7 Sep 88 02:29:29 GMT From: portal!cup.portal.com!Schizoid@uunet.uu.net Subject: Re: space exploration/exploitation >I heard that John Denver will be paying $10M to the Russians to go into >space...can anyone confirm this? [paraphrased] TIME Magazine reported this story in one of their last three issues. The major obstacle Denver is said to face is learning Russian; he will also have to pass a NASA [sic] physical and go through the USSR training program. {Fred_Apple_Bonhotal, schizoid}@cup.portal.com ------------------------------ Date: 7 Sep 88 18:07:30 GMT From: att!ihlpl!knudsen@ucbvax.berkeley.edu (Knudsen) Subject: Re: Shuttle names--old and new Hmmm, can anyone else verify the statement that Shuttle names must also be of SF space ships? If so, how about "Cygnus" from _The Black Hole_ movie. "Cygnus" means "swan." The shuttle sure is an ugly duckling when it takes off -- such an ungainly contraption, even as it dances into the sky (thanks for that phrase!). But it's graceful as a swan after it shucks those boosters and tank. Now if someone can find an exploratory sea-ship Cygnus... 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