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, 28 Apr 89 03:17:02 -0400 (EDT) Message-ID: Reply-To: space+@Andrew.CMU.EDU From: space-request+@Andrew.CMU.EDU To: space+@Andrew.CMU.EDU Date: Fri, 28 Apr 89 03:16:51 -0400 (EDT) Subject: SPACE Digest V9 #398 SPACE Digest Volume 9 : Issue 398 Today's Topics: STS-30 Dial-A-Shuttle Press Release Habitating Mars: humourous look Re: URGENT -- SPACE STATION FUNDING VOTE ON TUESDAY!! Re: Progress 41 ejected as crew prepares to leave USSR's Mir station Re: failures and engineering Re: manned spaceflight funding Re: Advanced Solid Rocket Motor (ASRM) Project (Fact Sheet) (Forwarded) WANTED: Shuttle transmission frequencies (or HF feed of NASA) Goddard Leadership Re: Space Shuttle Attacked by 200-foot UFO! Telsa Article NASA personell offices ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 26 Apr 89 04:28:00 GMT From: arisia!cdp!jordankatz@lll-winken.llnl.gov Subject: STS-30 Dial-A-Shuttle Press Release CONTACT: For Immediate Release Leonard David David Brandt Dial-A-Shuttle Update: STARS ON EARTH BRING YOU OUR STARS IN SPACE DIAL-IT 900 SERVICE ALLOWS PUBLIC TO HEAR LATEST NEWS AND VOICES OF ASTRONAUTS; STAR TREK CREW TO ADD COMMENTARY DIAL 1-900-909-NASA The National Space Society has announced that it will provide continuous 24-hour Dial-A-Shuttle coverage of America's pioneering step toward Earth's mysterious sister planet Venus. Fictional spacefarers from the popular TV show "Star Trek - The Next Generation" and ABC News broadcaster Hugh Downs will participate with the regular team of announcers in providing live coverage of the STS-30 mission from the Johnson Space Center in Houston, TX. The Dial-A-Shuttle team will offer news updates, interviews, and feature stories wrapped around all available live conversation between the astronauts aboard the shuttle orbiter Atlantis and NASA's mission control. The coverage will commence two hours prior to the launch from Kennedy Space Center in Florida of Atlantis and her Magellan scientific probe. This will be the first American planetary mission since 1978 and the first planetary probe to be carried aboard the shuttle. STS-30 mission Commander David M. Walker and his crew of four will deploy the $378 million spacecraft about six hours after launch. The crew will release the probe from the shuttle's payload bay, and a rocket attached to Magellan will send the spacecraft toward Venus on a 466-day voyage. Once in orbit around Venus, Magellan will use high- resolution radar to make the most detailed topographical map of the landscape of the second planet from the Sun. Secondary experiments will keep the four man, one woman crew busy for four days, at the end of which the orbiter will land at Edwards Air Force Base in California. Dial-A-Shuttle service will cease after the post- flight press conference. Dial-A-Shuttle is produced by the National Space Society in cooperation with AT&T's Dial-it 900 Service program and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. EDITORS NOTE: PLEASE INFORM YOUR READERS/LISTENERS/VIEWERS THAT THERE IS A TOLL CHARGE FOR DIAL-A-SHUTTLE; IT IS $2.00 FOR THE FIRST MINUTE, 45 CENTS FOR EACH ADDITIONAL MINUTE. ASSIGNMENT EDITORS CAN FOLLOW THE MISSION ON A REAL-TIME BASIS BY CALLING DIAL-A-SHUTTLE - NO NEED TO WAIT FOR WIRE SERVICE REPORTS. ------------------------------ Date: 23 Apr 89 18:05:46 GMT From: mvac23!thomas@louie.udel.edu (Thomas Lapp) Subject: Habitating Mars: humourous look Here is something I came across in the USA Weekend in this Sunday's paper. It was describing a discussion with a NASA research scientist about whether or not Mars could be inhabited. The comments included the facts that in order to live there, we would need to raise the temperature 100 degrees and improve the atmosphere. It then went on to say that the authors of the article felt it would also require: " - Its own football team, to take on all visitors - Day-care centers - A New Age radio station - Automatic Teller Machines - Chinese carryout or pizza delivery - VCR tape rentals and - A decent deli" Just something to brighten your day. - tom ============================================================================== ! WARNING: site 'mvac' will be no uucp: ...!udel!mvac23!thomas ! more soon. Send all mail Internet: mvac23!thomas@udel.edu ! to site 'mvac23' instead. Internet: mvac23!thomas@udel.edu ! Thanks. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------ Date: 26 Apr 89 04:43:51 GMT From: unmvax!polyslo!jmckerna@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU (John McKernan) Subject: Re: URGENT -- SPACE STATION FUNDING VOTE ON TUESDAY!! In article <23567@agate.BERKELEY.EDU> web@garnet.berkeley.edu (William Baxter) writes: >In article <10547@polyslo.CalPoly.EDU>, jmckerna@polyslo (John McKernan) writes: >> government is the only current source of the amount >>money needed to build large scale space hardware >>John L. McKernan. Student, Computer Science, Cal Poly S.L.O. > >What gave you this idea? The current Forbes Magazine lists the 500 >largest American companies by various characteristics. There are 35 >with 1988 *profits* of over $1 billion, and 90 with *profits* of over >$500 million. This is enough money to develop space even at the NASA >prices. Yep William, these companies sure do have a lot of money. Why don't you speculate on just how much of their $500 million profits they'll voluntarily spend on planetary probes and manned space R&D and such. Some of them do a lot of advertising and maybe if you can figure a promotional angle you could get $10,000. John L. McKernan. Student, Computer Science, Cal Poly S.L.O. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The future is rude and pushy. It won't wait for us to solve today's problems before it butts in with tomorrow's. ------------------------------ Date: 25 Apr 89 06:01:44 GMT From: yalevm!HOWGREJ@CS.YALE.EDU Subject: Re: Progress 41 ejected as crew prepares to leave USSR's Mir station In article <8904240005.AA29889@ll-vlsi.arpa>, glenn@LL-VLSI.ARPA (Glenn Chapman) writes: > As part of this the Progress 41 cargo >craft's engines substantially boosted Mir's altitude by about 40 Km (25 >mi) to form a 400 x 372 km (250 x 232 mi) orbit. Thus the station can >go for several months now without requiring Mir's own engines or >reboost. On Apr. 20th Radio Moscow announced Progress 41 had been >ejected and entered the atmosphere, hence leaving the rear docking port >free for the next crew or other craft to service the station. It just occurred to me today (now, I know this is not an original concept but I have never heard it applied specifically to the Soviet program) just how much energy Mir forfeits when they dump a Progress. Just attach a (very strong) line to Mir and Progress, reel it out a few dozen km, and cut it off. This would dump Progress right into the atmosphere and considerably boost Mir's orbit. I've read articles about the idea before (one in S&T a couple years ago, and others) that mentioned doing this with Freedom and the Shuttle, but Mir already has to dump a lot of mass on a regular basis. How tough would this be for them to do? The only problem I see would be with the strength of the cable. I know that the US Tethered Satellite System uses a 1kg/km cable capable of holding at least a few 100 kgs; a bunch of these would probably do the trick. Is this a realistic thing for the Soviets to do? It would certainly save a couple hundred kg of fuel. Anyone have any stats on cable strength, or ideas on the practicality of the Soviets using this technique? Greg Howard HOWGREJ@YALEVM "No quotes, my .sig died..." ------------------------------ Date: 24 Apr 89 21:54:49 GMT From: jarthur!jokim@uunet.uu.net (John H. Kim) Subject: Re: failures and engineering In article <3880005@hpctdke.HP.COM> rbk@hpctdke.HP.COM (Richard Katz) writes: > >Also, if memory serves me correctly, voyager had some last second >fixes at the pad, and some late modifications that let the dual >command systems both operate contributing to the success of the >missions from the added processing power. off the subject but... If *my* memory serves me correctly, there were three voyager craft. The first to be launched had problems which couldn't be fixed within the launch window so they swapped it with the second. It (the first) became voyager 2 (yes, V2 was launched before V1). I'm not sure what happened with the craft that became voyager 1. Does anyone know? And what about the third craft? Is it the one on display at JPL? I know they used it to figure out what was going on with the platform sticking on V2 before its encounter with Uranus. -- John H. Kim | (This space to be filled when I jokim@jarthur.Claremont.EDU | think of something very clever uunet!muddcs!jarthur!jokim | to use as a disclaimer) ------------------------------ Date: 26 Apr 89 04:35:26 GMT From: unmvax!polyslo!jmckerna@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU (John McKernan) Subject: Re: manned spaceflight funding In article <1989Apr22.221649.4810@utzoo.uucp> henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) writes: >In article <10597@polyslo.CalPoly.EDU> jmckerna@polyslo.CalPoly.EDU (John McKernan) writes: >>Government is the only current source of funds for a manned space effort >>regardless of which WAY it is done > >There is considerable precedent, in other areas, for private funding of >science and exploration. Roald Amundsen had no government funding for >his trip to the South Pole. Fleischmann and Pons had no government funding >for their cold-fusion research. [Please refer arguments about whether the >results are real or not to alt.fusion.] Bednorz and Muller had no >government funding for their Nobel-Prize-winning work on superconductors. >The Voyager round-the-world flight was privately funded. Several current >projects for big astronomical telescopes are privately funded. Funding for research in the US is complex. There is R&D which the government won't fund but private industry will, there is R&D which private industry might fund but doesn't because government is providing the money, and there is R&D that only the government will fund. Most space R&D is funded by the government, and I think it's unlikely (to say the least) that private industry would start doing things like unmanned planetary probes and a lot of manned space R&D if NASA stopped doing them. There might be a few private efforts like those refered to above (F&P spent $100,000 over five years, how much space R&D can you do for that much money?). I don't doubt that such efforts would get orders of magnitude more out of their money. But NASA spends 10+ billion every year, and even with all the waste, your just not going to get as much done without the government. There are certainly much better ways that money could be spent. If the shuttle program had been done using a guaranteed market and private shuttles we probably would have ended up with a much better shuttle for a lot less money. John L. McKernan. Student, Computer Science, Cal Poly S.L.O. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The future is rude and pushy. It won't wait for us to solve today's problems before it butts in with tomorrow's. ------------------------------ Date: 25 Apr 89 16:17:11 GMT From: usc!orion.cf.uci.edu!uci-ics!venera.isi.edu!rod@bloom-beacon.mit.edu (Rodney Doyle Van Meter III) Subject: Re: Advanced Solid Rocket Motor (ASRM) Project (Fact Sheet) (Forwarded) In article <24200@ames.arc.nasa.gov> yee@trident.arc.nasa.gov (Peter E. Yee) writes: > > ADVANCED SOLID ROCKET MOTOR (ASRM) PROJECT > > In terms of performance, the Shuttle's projected 12,000- >pound extra lifting capability with the new motors will enable >additional payload deliveries equivalent to 2.4 Shuttle missions >per year, above the currently planned maximum of 14 per year. I thought that most of the time these days, the number one constraint on payload weight was the amount that the shuttle could safely land with in the event of an abort. Will they really let it fly with heavier payloads? --Rod ------------------------------ Date: 25 Apr 89 23:33:22 GMT From: cunixc!kingdon@columbia.edu (John Kingdon) Subject: WANTED: Shuttle transmission frequencies (or HF feed of NASA) With the Space Shuttle ATLANTIS (STS-30) scheduled to launch in a few days (April 28, 1824 UTC), I am interested in finding out if WA3NAN or some other Amateur Radio station will put the NASA feed onto HF (shortwave). I enjoyed listening during the last flight and hope there is continuing service from the Amateur community. Could someone please send to me (or post) a list (preferably for HF) which gives the list of this Amateur service or some of NASA's feeds? Thanks much, John Kingdon ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- John Kingdon (212)-678-1689 | CompuServe 71471, 1062 UUCP ...!rutgers!columbia!cunixc!kingdon | ARPA kingdon@cunixc.columbia.edu BITNET kingdon@cunixc.bitnet | or kingdon@cunixc.cc.columbia.edu ------------------------------ Reply-To: mordor!rutgers!pnet01.cts.com!jim@angband.s1.gov Date: Tue, 25 Apr 89 20:49:53 PDT From: mordor!rutgers!pnet01.cts.com!jim@angband.s1.gov (Jim Bowery) To: hplabs!hpcea!hp-sdd!crash!space@angband.s1.gov Subject: Goddard Leadership > NASA GODDARD CENTER REQUESTS COMMERCIAL LAUNCH SERVICES PROPOSALS - > can890304.txt - 3/31/89 > ... > Under the agreement, the contractor would furnish all > supplies, including the launch vehicle, facilities, personnel, > and services necessary to design, produce, test, integrate and > launch the missions into the required orbit. NASA Goddard is showing leadership. Thank god there is SOME leadership potential within the NASA ranks! --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Jim Bowery Phone: 619/295-8868 PO Box 1981 Join the Mark Hopkins Society! La Jolla, CA 92038 (A member of the Mark Hopkins family of organizations.) UUCP: {cbosgd, hplabs!hp-sdd, sdcsvax, nosc}!crash!pnet01!jim ARPA: crash!pnet01!jim@nosc.mil INET: jim@pnet01.cts.com ------------------------------ Date: 26 Apr 89 17:35:29 GMT From: titan!phil@rice.edu (William LeFebvre) Subject: Re: Space Shuttle Attacked by 200-foot UFO! In article <891@csed-55.IDA.ORG> roskos@ida.org (Eric Roskos) writes: >The Daily Star rocked Europe by additionally reporting that a *ham radio >operator* claims to have heard a shuttle astronaut say: "Houston, we >have a `fire'" -- which is widely believed to be a NASA [term] for a >UFO. It is ludicrous to believe that they would have established "fire" as a code word for a UFO during shuttle operations. What if they really *had* a fire on board? That is too dangerous a situation to confuse with a "close encounter". If they said they had a fire, they probably did have a fire.... Geeeezz....where do they get this stuff? William LeFebvre Department of Computer Science Rice University ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 26 Apr 89 13:10:37 CDT From: Eddie Mikell Subject: Telsa Article Could someone mail me the address of Mr. Hardy (the gentleman who sent the brief article about Telsa to the Digest)? My copy managed to disappear. Thanks Eddie Mikell Eddie@cc.msstate.edu ------------------------------ Date: 26 Apr 89 18:15:39 GMT From: asuvax!enuxha!kluksdah@noao.edu (Norman C. Kluksdahl) Subject: NASA personell offices Some time ago, someone was kind enough to post a listing of the personel offices at various NASA facilities. Wouldn't you know, that I paid no attention. Now, I sure could use that list. If anyone has a copy, would you please, please e-mail me a copy? Thanks in advance. ********************************************************************** Norman Kluksdahl Arizona State University enuxha.kluksdah@eas.asu.edu enuxc1.kluksdah@eas.asu.edu standard disclaimer implied Useful criticism always appreciated. Senseless flames always discarded. ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest V9 #398 *******************