Return-path: X-Andrew-Authenticated-as: 7997;andrew.cmu.edu;Ted Anderson Received: from holmes.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, 3 Mar 89 03:17:12 -0500 (EST) Message-ID: <0Y3Ybuy00UkZ4l104w@andrew.cmu.edu> Reply-To: space+@Andrew.CMU.EDU From: space-request+@Andrew.CMU.EDU To: space+@Andrew.CMU.EDU Date: Fri, 3 Mar 89 03:16:58 -0500 (EST) Subject: SPACE Digest V9 #273 SPACE Digest Volume 9 : Issue 273 Today's Topics: Mondale and (or vs.) space (was Re: Nerva) Re: manned vs unmanned, and space commercialization Re: An integrated space program for the world USSR on manned/unmanned ... Re: What ever happened to NERVA? Re: Forbes article on manned space program Re: Nerva Re: More good news! Re: Man tended experiments PS: Nerva NASA Prediction Bulletin Format ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 26 Feb 89 20:55:10 GMT From: silver!chiaravi@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu (Lucius Chiaraviglio) Subject: Mondale and (or vs.) space (was Re: Nerva) In article <604525968.amon@H.GP.CS.CMU.EDU> Dale.Amon@H.GP.CS.CMU.EDU writes: >The Congressional names to damn for all eternity are William Proxmire >and Walter Mondale. [. . .] I know why you list William Proxmire in this, but what did Walter Mondale do against space, and when? -- | Lucius Chiaraviglio | ARPA: chiaravi@silver.bacs.indiana.edu BITNET: chiaravi@IUBACS.BITNET (IUBACS hoses From: fields; INCLUDE RET ADDR) ARPA-gatewayed BITNET: chiaravi%IUBACS.BITNET@vm.cc.purdue.edu Alt ARPA-gatewayed BITNET: chiaravi%IUBACS.BITNET@cunyvm.cuny.edu ------------------------------ Date: 26 Feb 89 22:01:20 GMT From: phoenix!kpmancus@princeton.edu (Keith P. Mancus) Subject: Re: manned vs unmanned, and space commercialization >> >What prevents you from using a tele-operated rig? >> The complete lack of an adequate, workable "tele-operated rig" available >> as reliable off-the-shelf hardware, perhaps? >The time has never been better to develop an orbiting, tele-operated >materials-processing and biological experimentation laboratory. With >skillful miniaturization, an unmanned laboratory could be lofted >by a fairly small, and thus inexpensive, expendable launcher. The >launcher would be well within the range of a private launch service. I'd go even further than that. Given the current movement away from central cities, with people living further and further from their places of work, it seems to me that in the not-too-distant future many people will be able to live at home and do their work through teleoperation. (See _Oath of Fealty_ for the sort of thing I mean.) The US can probably manage fine without this technology, although it would be nice. The more overpopulated a country is, the more it needs to spread out, creating problems with traffic congestion and time wasted moving to and from work. This all seems reasonable to me. What do the people actually working on these rigs think? Is this too expensive to contemplate? -- ------------------------------------------------------------------ -Keith Mancus <- preferred ------------------------------ Date: 27 Feb 89 01:58:48 GMT From: att!pegasus!psrc@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU (Paul S. R. Chisholm) Subject: Re: An integrated space program for the world <"He seemed like such a nice man . . . and then he turned out to be a writer!"> In article <8902222303.AA13688@csd4.milw.wisc.edu>, markh@CSD4.MILW.WISC.EDU (Mark William Hopkins) defends his agenda in space. I apologize for carrying this debate away from space-related issues. But while Dr. Hopkins says that some of these things *should* or *must* happen, I argue that they *cannot* happen, and that tying our goals in space to such wishful thinking will damage our more attainable objectives. > The political climate is subtly changing in such a way that no individual > nation's power no longer exceeds the combined power of world opinion. Such as the enormous effect international condemnation has had on apartheid in South Africa? Or (to address your specific suggestions) that some North African nations are destroying food and starving their own people, because the hungry regions are also centers of dissent? Raw food production isn't the sole cause or antidote to world hunger; distribution is also a critical issue. > Judging by the response, though, I would still tend to think that a lot of > people are somewhat skeptical towards this assessment of the current and > future political situation. Especially when you tie your visions to attitudes such as these: > But the world is getting to be way too > small for there to be autonomous nations -- especially with what is already > going on with other climate problems such as the depleting Ozone layer > or the Greenhouse Effect. > > There will be cooperation, or extinction. That time of reckoning is no > longer in the future (as so many Sci. Fci. scenarios depict it), but > today. I don't disagree with you that nationalism is often counterproductive, even dangerous. "Cooperation or extinction, today" has been cried since the beginning of the Cold War. Even now, forty years later, the wrong interpretation of a radar screen could set back civilization by decades or centuries, or even kill every human being on or above the Earth. But the alternative seems to be telling the Powers (super- or otherwise) that be, "It's time for you to give up all your strength, to lay aside your ability to 'protect your own interests.' Sure, you may end up hungrier, poorer, certainly weaker for it. But isn't the bettering of the rest of the human race worth it?" That question has been answered, "No!" by every nation that ever prepared for or went to war. > The big stumbling block is getting the superpowers together on such a plan. > That, alone, would turn the tide of opinion. Sorry; I can't agree even with that. Removing the polarization between nations on Earth would of course have a tremendous impact on international relations. (How's *that* for the understatement of the eon.) But it wouldn't solve regional problems that cause some of the trouble you're trying to fix. Unity between the superpowers would certainly exacerbate mistrust between them and the smaller nations, who'd no longer even be able to play the big boys off against each other. Mark, going into orbit with the Soviets to solve world hunger, or with them to Mars instead of building nuclear warheads (Dr. Sagan's thesis), would be wonderful. Carter's concentration on energy problems as "a moral equivalent to war" would have been, too. But our efforts in space, and our technical solutions, can't resolve problems like that. At best, they help us to defuse them. At worst, they can make them worse. (ICBMs are one example. Many people would site ballistic missile defense systems as another; I'm not going to get into that one here.) So we'll send our robots and our men to other worlds. We'll have them dig up the soil of other planets, other places. We'll look through their eyes as they turn back wonder how the orb they stand on differs from this fragile blue marble of ours. Maybe, we'll take a more global, certainly less narrow view of how we deal with each other. But no satellite will bring world peace. Only men and women can do that. Paul S. R. Chisholm, AT&T Bell Laboratories, att!pegasus!psrc psrc@pegasus.att.com, AT&T Mail !psrchisholm I'm not speaking for the company, I'm just speaking my mind. ------------------------------ Date: 27 Feb 89 01:40:16 GMT From: jumbo!ayers@decwrl.dec.com (Bob Ayers) Subject: USSR on manned/unmanned ... The following exchange begins the USSR/USA television talk/debate "Together to Mars." I obtained it from the April 1988 issue of "Soviet Life," which contains several articles releated to the USSR space program. I believe the exchange sums up the current manned/unmanned debate well -- the "realists" versus the visionaries. Sagan: Should we send men to Mars -- or only robots? And can we afford to send manned flights to Mars? Arkadi Strugatsky, Soviet science-fiction writer: Well, I'm a pessimist in this regard. I think it's too early to seriously discuss such a monstrously expensive project. Mankind is not yet prepared for this, economically or socially. Moreover, technologically, mankind is not yet ready for a comprehensive, sustained exploration of Mars or Venus ... Valeri Kubasov, Pilot-Cosmonaut of the USSR: I've always imagined that first there was the dream -- the vision -- and only after that, the real project. And the visionaries always provided us with a direction for thought ... Sure the mission might take 10 or 15 years, but we've got to get started ... ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 26 Feb 89 11:22:39 PDT From: Peter Scott Subject: Re: What ever happened to NERVA? X-Vms-Mail-To: EXOS%"space@andrew.cmu.edu" There's a short article on NERVA in the current issue of _Final Frontier_, an excellent magazine. Peter Scott (pjs@grouch.jpl.nasa.gov) ------------------------------ Date: 26 Feb 89 02:22:24 GMT From: portal!cup.portal.com!hkhenson@uunet.uu.net (H Keith Henson) Subject: Re: Forbes article on manned space program Someone failed to do their arithmetic. 1 g and one rpm gives you the Stanford torus of the 1975 space colony study. It came in at just over a mile in diameter, not some 10 miles. A bigger problem is cosmic radiation. It takes about 6 feet of dirt to bring them down to the level you could live all your life there. Keith Henson (a founder of L5) hkhenson@cup.portal.com ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 26 Feb 1989 14:52-EST From: Dale.Amon@H.GP.CS.CMU.EDU Subject: Re: Nerva Nerva was dropped primarily because it was an engine without a mission. The only reasonable mission for it was perceived to be a manned Mars mission, and although the Agnew Commission came out for this aggressive space plan, congress and the country were turning anti-tech. It was a sad time for those of us who grew up with bright dreams of going into space. I got to grow up watching the hardware being built, and then I got to see it all INTENTIONALLY discarded and destroyed to insure that NASA would not be able to revive the dream any time soon. More simply, NERVA was killed by the political maneuvering over the space budget. It could only be justified by a healthy active space program, and congress did not want that. Nixon did not want to put his political capital on the line because the Moon (and space) was a Democratic program and he was too busy with the Vietnam War and millions of long haired hippies (like me at the time) banging on the White House fence. The Congressional names to damn for all eternity are William Proxmire and Walter Mondale. Maybe one day we can erect an anti-monument to them on the moon. Maybe the "Walter Mondale Memorial Septic Tank". Strikes me as quite fitting, you know. ------------------------------ Date: 24 Feb 89 15:12:00 GMT From: killer!texbell!merch!cpe!hal6000!trsvax!reyn@ames.arc.nasa.gov Subject: Re: More good news! If Dan Quayle is your most prestigious supporter, you've got a long, long way to go. Every time I think of him I pray for the competence of the Secret Service and hope George keeps his flak jacket on. However, I do think the Commercial or Industrial or whatever you want to call it Space Thingy is a logical step towards a manned station. My primary beef with Space Station Freedom is its apparent uselessness until it is fully completed. I remember from several years back a proposal to orbit a Solar Array with which shuttles could dock to increase their on orbit time. To this structure would be added SpaceLab modules, etc, eventually leading to a permanently peopled station. Freedom, on the other hand, seems to need a large number of flights for construction, during which time all other American space activities seem to go on hold. Is my understanding correct, or will the structure be in some way useful after the first few shuttles deposit their loads? ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 26 Feb 1989 15:03-EST From: Dale.Amon@H.GP.CS.CMU.EDU Subject: Re: Man tended experiments > experiments make sense. But in space, how many of the repairs can be made > real-time? Shuttle experience suggests not very many. How many protocol Quite a lot actually. I know Charlie Walker well enough to sit around and swap stories over a brew, and he spent much of his three flights tinkering with the hardware. Charlie was the first real ENGINEER in space, and he was studying his hardware in it's natural environment and using the results of real observation to modify things on the spot and to make later more major corrections on the ground based on the in space observation and tinkering. Franklin Chang Diaz did quite a bit of fiddling around with his experiments in Skylab also. (The Floating Monkey Shit Flight) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ I'll buy ANYTHING that gives Dale Amon Khomeini a heart attack. Free Minds and Free Markets Simon Rushdie for Prime Minister! Free Speech and a Free Press ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 26 Feb 1989 15:19-EST From: Dale.Amon@H.GP.CS.CMU.EDU Subject: PS: Nerva In a way I grew up with the project because my brother and law and sister were living up stairs and he was flying out to Jack Ass Flats for the Pittsburgh based contractor, Westinghouse Astronuclear. I can remember sitting around watching Star Trek with him every week (when it first came out) and thinking that Bill was working on the real thing. The apartment walls featured some great engine test photos. Ah, those wonderful forgotten days of optimism... ------------------------------ Date: 26 Feb 89 19:13:41 GMT From: tkelso@blackbird.afit.af.mil (TS Kelso) Subject: NASA Prediction Bulletin Format As a service to the satellite user community, the following description of the NASA Prediction Bulletin's two-line orbital element set format is uploaded to sci.space on a monthly basis. The most current orbital elements from the NASA Prediction Bulletins are carried on the Celestial RCP/M, (513) 427-0674, and are updated several times weekly. Documentation and tracking software are also available on this system. The Celestial RCP/M may be accessed 24 hours/day at 300, 1200, or 2400 baud using 8 data bits, 1 stop bit, no parity. ============================================================================== Data for each satellite consists of three lines in the following format: AAAAAAAAAAA 1 NNNNNU NNNNNAAA NNNNN.NNNNNNNN +.NNNNNNNN +NNNNN-N +NNNNN-N N NNNNN 2 NNNNN NNN.NNNN NNN.NNNN NNNNNNN NNN.NNNN NNN.NNNN NN.NNNNNNNNNNNNNN Line 1 is a eleven-character name. Lines 2 and 3 are the standard Two-Line Orbital Element Set Format identical to that used by NASA and NORAD. The format description is: Line 2 Column Description 01-01 Line Number of Element Data 03-07 Satellite Number 10-11 International Designator (Last two digits of launch year) 12-14 International Designator (Launch number of the year) 15-17 International Designator (Piece of launch) 19-20 Epoch Year (Last two digits of year) 21-32 Epoch (Julian Day and fractional portion of the day) 34-43 First Time Derivative of the Mean Motion or Ballistic Coefficient (Depending on ephemeris type) 45-52 Second Time Derivative of Mean Motion (decimal point assumed; blank if N/A) 54-61 BSTAR drag term if GP4 general perturbation theory was used. Otherwise, radiation pressure coefficient. (Decimal point assumed) 63-63 Ephemeris type 65-68 Element number 69-69 Check Sum (Modulo 10) (Letters, blanks, periods = 0; minus sign = 1) Line 3 Column Description 01-01 Line Number of Element Data 03-07 Satellite Number 09-16 Inclination [Degrees] 18-25 Right Ascension of the Ascending Node [Degrees] 27-33 Eccentricity (decimal point assumed) 35-42 Argument of Perigee [Degrees] 44-51 Mean Anomaly [Degrees] 53-63 Mean Motion [Revs per day] 64-68 Revolution number at epoch [Revs] 69-69 Check Sum (Modulo 10) All other columns are blank or fixed. Example: NOAA 6 1 11416U 86 50.28438588 0.00000140 67960-4 0 5293 2 11416 98.5105 69.3305 0012788 63.2828 296.9658 14.24899292346978 Note that the International Designator fields are usually blank, as issued in the NASA Prediction Bulletins. -- Dr TS Kelso Asst Professor of Space Operations tkelso@blackbird.afit.af.mil Air Force Institute of Technology ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest V9 #273 *******************