Return-path: X-Andrew-Authenticated-as: 7997;andrew.cmu.edu;Ted Anderson Received: from corsica.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 ; Tue, 27 Jun 89 05:17:13 -0400 (EDT) Message-ID: Reply-To: space+@Andrew.CMU.EDU From: space-request+@Andrew.CMU.EDU To: space+@Andrew.CMU.EDU Date: Tue, 27 Jun 89 05:17:05 -0400 (EDT) Subject: SPACE Digest V9 #515 SPACE Digest Volume 9 : Issue 515 Today's Topics: Re: Children born July 20, 1969 NSS/SpaceCause Legislative Alert Re: Gold Deposits Re: Don't mess with NASA? Re: Gold Deposits Re: SPACE Digest V9 #500 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 23 Jun 89 14:47:53 GMT From: usc!orion.cf.uci.edu!dkrause@BLOOM-BEACON.MIT.EDU (Doug Krause) Subject: Re: Children born July 20, 1969 In article <890623.10245792.002090@RMC.CP6> JC@RMC.BITNET writes: >I don't know of anyone named "Module", but this makes me wonder when Frank >Zappa's daughter "Moon Unit" was born. I know she was about sixteen when >she recorded "Valley Girl", and that was a few years ago. Hmmmmm... I think Valley Girl came out around 79 or 80 so she would have been born about 5 years too early for the landing. Douglas Krause CA Prop i: Ban Gummie Bears(tm)! -------------------------------------------------------------------- University of California, Irvine ARPANET: dkrause@orion.cf.uci.edu Welcome to Irvine, Yuppieland USA BITNET: DJKrause@ucivmsa ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 23 Jun 89 11:39:50 EDT From: Steve Abrams Subject: NSS/SpaceCause Legislative Alert Pt. 1 - CRAF-Cassini FROM SPACECAUSE (RPromoting Space Development Through Legislative ActionS): Dear Supporter: Because of the critical importance of this legislative year to the space program, a united effort is being made, to support the NASA budget as a whole and the new start on CRAF-Cassini -- which involves a comet rendezvous, asteroid fly-bys, a Saturn orbiter and an entry probe into the organic clouds of Titan down to its unexplored surface. The NASA budget is currently under close scrutiny in Congress. CRAF-Cassini is the first truly post-Apollo new start of a planetary mission. The National Space SocietyUs family of organizations and The Planetary Society are joining together in this effort. Both organizations are recommending that their supporters contact appropriate members of Congress to authorize CRAF-Cassini along with the requested NASA budget. We urge you to read the enclosed. Cordially, (signature) Carl Sagan President, The Planetary Society Charles Walker President, National Space Society Dear SpaceCause or SpacePAC contributor or National Space Society member, The strategy of Spacecause is to politically organize those who are already pro-space. The same techniques which have made other movements powerful can also make the space movement powerful. In this context, the preceeding letter of agreement between The Planetary Society and the National Space SocietyUs family of organizations (SpaceCause, SpacePAC, and NSS) is a milestone. This agreement was originally suggested by Lori Garver, NSS Executive Director. It was negotiated by Louis Friedman, Executive Director of the Planetary Society and myself and was ultimately signed by Carl Sagan and Charles Walker. Cooperation is the most effective way for the space movement to make progress. Support for the NASA budget is particularly important this year because of the intimate relationship between the budget and the Space Station program. NASA has publicly stated that if its budget is cut by the $600-800 million or more, the agency will recommend that the program be terminated. According to former NASA Administrator James Beggs, Rsuch a reduction is looming for the agency.S The letter from Charles Walker which follows in this package explains in terms of our goals why the Space Station is the top priority short-term legislative goal of SpaceCause and the National Space Society. The CRAF-Cassini mission is important to science and to our goal of creating a space-faring civilization that will establish communities beyond the Earth. It will chart valuable resources like asteroidal minerals and cometary ice that may be of considerable importance to the industrialization of space and to the development of space settlements. The mission has two components, CRAF and Cassini, which use separate spacecraft. The Mariner II spacecraft bus is to be developed and used for both components. This type of bus - a considerable advance over existing technology - is also expected to be used for other probes. CRAF (Comet Rendezvous Asteroid Fly-by) will pass by an asteroid (449 Hamburga, an 88-km diameter carbonaceous body) for observation on its way to rendezvous with Comet Kopff. CRAF will fly alongside Kopff for almost three years, observing the cometUs behavior and analyzing its composition. Cassini will carry an orbiter and probe that will explore SaturnUs moon Titan. The probe will carry instruments to analyze the atmosphere of Titan as the probe parachutes to the surface and will continue to radio reports from the surface after landing. The orbiter will image the surface of Titan, creating radar maps with 200 meter resolution. The orbiter will also explore SaturnUs other moons and its rings. It is very difficult for new starts, like CRAF-Cassini to survive when the NASA budget is severely cut. We need your help to save the Space Station and CRAF-Cassini. There are two key upcoming votes which will probably decide the issue. The first will occur in congressman Bob TrazlerUs House Appropriations sub-committee which deals with NASA. We shall contact you about the second later. The Traxler vote is imminent, which is why this letter is being mailed first-class instead of at the less-expensive and slower non-profit rate. We need everyone to telephone Congressman Bob Traxler during Washington business hours (letters may not arrive in time). His direct number is (202)225-2806. In addition, please call those, if any, of the following members of TraxlerUs subcommittee that are from your state: Louis Stokes (D-OH), Lindy Boggs (D-LA), Allan Mollohan (D-WV), Jim Chapman (D-TX), Chester Atkins (D-MA), Lawrence Coughlin (R-PA), Bill Green (R-NY), and Jerry Lewis (R-CA). Any member of Congress cna be reached by calling (202)224-3121 and asking for the member in question. Ask for full funding for NASA and in particular for the Space Station. Also mention CRAF-Cassini as a secondary issue. At the time I am writing this, it is not known when TraxlerUs subcommittee will vote. The best strategy is to call as soon as you receive this letter. Up-to-date information can be obtained by calling the Space Hotline at (202)543-1995. After you call, ask your friends to do the same. Then help us out by sending a financial contribution to SPACECAUSE -- these grassroots mailings cost money, and can be continued only with the support of space advocates like yourself. The next century can be the century in which America leads humanity into space to live and work. It will be an adventure without parallel in human history -- grander than the great age of Earth exploration and settlement that started several hundred years ago and has only ended in this century. For the adventure to take place, though, those of us with vision must work to overcome shortsightedness and ignorance here on Earth. Please help. Sincerely yours, (signature) Mark M. Hopkins President, Spacecause Dear Space Supporter, The fundamental, long-term goal of Spacecause and the National Space Society is to create a space-faring civilization that will establish communities beyond the Earth. A permanently manned space station is required to meet this goal. If we are serious about opening the space frontier, we must gain long- term experience with living and working in space. We must have a platform for extensive biological and medical research of the effects of low and variable gravity on living things. This vital research cannot be done on Earth. Nor can it be done on a man-tended platform. Only a permanently- manned space station, such as Space Station Freedom, capable of providing continuous life support, will eet the need. We must have a staging base for the efforts to expand permanent human presence beyond low Earth orbit. A major spaceport is required to support exploration and development, first of the moon, and ultimately of the inner solar system. Freedom Station is but the first step in human expansion into space; but it is also a critical first step. There will be no return to the moon in the foreseeable future without Freedom Station. It is for these reasons that Freedom Station is the top priority short- term legislative goal of Spacecause and the National Space Society. we need new starts like CRAF-Cassini to help identify resources and chart our future course. But exploration is only the beginning. For the permanent occupancy of space, we need Freedom Station. I urge each of you to write or call members of Congress in accordance witht he instructions in the accompanying materials. Only by collective action can we obtain our goals. Sincerely, (signature) Charles Walker Chairman, Spacecause ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 23 Jun 1989 14:34-EDT From: Dale.Amon@H.GP.CS.CMU.EDU Subject: Re: Gold Deposits MINERAL SURVEY OF THE SOLAR SYSTEM ACCORDING TO DMA... Gold will most likely be found on planets that either have: 1) Plate Tectonics 2) Significant vulcanism that remelts rock and allows slow solidification (ie the nonreactive/nonsoluble gold has a chance to collect in veins/pockets) 3) Places where there is access to the core of a differentiated body. Mercury probably has the largest gold deposits of anywhere in the solar system, but despite the giant size of it's core relative mantle, it is still an inaccessable number of kilometers deep. There is gold in small but economically viable percentages in iron and stony iron asteroids, along with the Platinum and Palladium. Some asteroids, from collisions over eons, are pieces of naked core material. Merely add energy and separate using a Carbonyl process. The Earth is most likely the richest source of mineable VEINS in the solar system, due to the combination of vulcanism, plate tectonics and fluid dissolution/deposition. Some think that gold veins may be largely the result of gold dissolved in sea water that is trapped and carried down with the plate subduction. Some of the very large shield volcanoes on Mars and Venus would seem reasonable but less certain propects also. The evidence is not in yet, but Venus may have at one time in its past had active plate tectonics. Some think it may still have. The answers will be forthcoming when Magellan arrives ans starts sending back maps at the higher resolution needed to answer this question. The features are just on the edge of resolution in current images. Close enough to make good arguments. Not close enough to buy penny mining stocks on Beta Regio Mining & Extraction Inc. The Moon probably has no deposits other than that left over from the dust of asteroid collisions. There have been some theorizing about limited differentiation in some lava flows, even of underground volatiles to leach and carry minerals. I place my bet that there are no lunar volatiles, polar or otherwise. I expect the private Lunar Polar Orbiter Project will show this to be the case. The martian moons are probably chondritic and probably have a little of the Platinum group, but not much. Mostly they will be valuable for their volatiles for refueling and CHON compounds for food stocks. Mars itself might have had stillborn tectonics, but most likely was limited to shield volcano activity, as mentioned above. The outer moons are mostly "dirty ice's" and unlikely to have much in the way of heavy nuclei. The furthur out you go, the large the fraction of "volatiles" (at least things that are volatile in here close to the solar furnace) grows rapidly. There are probably loads of heavy metals in the cores of the gas giants, but you might find it a little difficult to get at them... ------------------------------ Date: 24 Jun 89 08:57:32 GMT From: leech@apple.com (Jonathan Patrick Leech) Subject: Re: Don't mess with NASA? In article <13023@ihlpa.ATT.COM> preacher@ihlpa.UUCP (45262-Williams,J.B.) writes: >EMBARASSING!! EMBARASSING!!! There is such class to crawling into >a DC-3 at an airport that there is not even any word for such mega- >class. The only thing better than a DC-3 is TWO DC-3s. Are you sure you're not really Henry "Version 7" Spencer posting under an alias? -- Jon Leech (leech@apple.com) Apple Integrated Systems __@/ ------------------------------ Date: 24 Jun 89 19:55:42 GMT From: rochester!dietz@rutgers.edu (Paul Dietz) Subject: Re: Gold Deposits In article <614630084.amon@H.GP.CS.CMU.EDU> Dale.Amon@H.GP.CS.CMU.EDU writes: >MINERAL SURVEY OF THE SOLAR SYSTEM ACCORDING TO DMA... > >Gold will most likely be found on planets that either have: > > 1) Plate Tectonics > 2) Significant vulcanism that remelts rock and allows slow > solidification (ie the nonreactive/nonsoluble gold has a > chance to collect in veins/pockets) > 3) Places where there is access to the core of a differentiated > body. ... >There is gold in small but economically viable percentages in >iron and stony iron asteroids, along with the Platinum and Palladium. >Some asteroids, from collisions over eons, are pieces of naked core >material. Merely add energy and separate using a Carbonyl process. Asteroids were apparently melted early in the history of the solar system, and became differentiated. I wonder if veins or layers enriched in various materials, like gold, could have formed when they cooled. Naively, I'd expect the larger asteroids to be better differentiated, since they cooled more slowly and have stronger gravity. This leads to an interesting question: how deep can one dig a mine on an asteroid? My back of the envelope calculation says we should be able to dig a mine to the center of all but perhaps the largest asteroids, assuming they aren't too hot inside (I assume not). Perhaps some smaller asteroids have had veins exposed by impact. It would be real nice if we had some close-up data. It should be possible to arrange a spacecraft's orbit around the sun so that it encounters roughly one main belt asteroid per year for a decade or more. A more complete survey of the main belt would help a lot. I hope the price of palladium goes through the roof. :-) Paul F. Dietz dietz@cs.rochester.edu ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 24 Jun 89 12:05:54 EDT From: "Marc L. Overman" Subject: Re: SPACE Digest V9 #500 Sirs, Don't you still need to have an acceleration of at least 8 km/sec in order to even reach a stable apogee? It should be 11 km/sec in order to escape the earth's gravitational field. ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest V9 #515 *******************