Return-path: X-Andrew-Authenticated-as: 7997;andrew.cmu.edu;Ted Anderson Received: from beak.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 ; Mon, 2 Oct 89 04:25:08 -0400 (EDT) Message-ID: Reply-To: space+@Andrew.CMU.EDU From: space-request+@Andrew.CMU.EDU To: space+@Andrew.CMU.EDU Date: Mon, 2 Oct 89 04:24:48 -0400 (EDT) Subject: SPACE Digest V10 #99 SPACE Digest Volume 10 : Issue 99 Today's Topics: Re: Private launch costs NSS Hotline Update 9/21/89 Re: Pluto meets Neptune Re: HIPPARCOS status report membership Risk of NOT launching Galileo Re: Plutonium in space (was Risk of NOT launching Galileo) Edgar Rice Quayle on himself Plutonium in space (was Risk of NOT launching Galileo) Re: Pluto meets Neptune Re: HIPPARCOS status report ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 25 Sep 89 09:54:13 PDT From: mordor!lll-tis!oodis01!riacs!rutgers!pnet01.cts.com!jim@angband.s1.gov (Jim Bowery) To: ucsd!nosc!crash!space@angband.s1.gov Subject: Re: Private launch costs Greg Lindahl writes: > (noise deleted) ... The US public sector provides > shuttle-sized launches for the SAME COST as the shuttle. Interesting Freudian Slip, Greg. I couldn't have said it any better myself. The big three rocket manufacturers ARE basically "US public sector" so one shouldn't EXPECT them to do much better than shuttle costs. On the other hand, depending on whose accountants you listen to, shuttle costs are estimated at anywhere from about equal per pound to twice costs of the big three. > Some US corporations might be efficient (AMROC, OSC). Others aren't > (Titan IV, anyone?). > (more noise deleted) The US corporations that are "efficient" are those that are forced to be win business by being efficient rather than through maintaining the status quo. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- 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: 25 Sep 89 11:16:07 GMT From: cdp!jordankatz@labrea.stanford.edu Subject: NSS Hotline Update 9/21/89 This is the National Space Society's Space Hotline updated Thursday, September 21. The following press advisory was announced by NASA this morning at 7:30 EDT: Shuttle program managers have concluded that there is no credible scenario relative to hurricane Hugo which would require a rollback of Atlantis to the VAB at KSC and therefore, have decided that the vehicle should remain on the launch pad. For about the next 12 hours, KSC personnel will be preparing to resume work readying Atlantis for launch. During this time, officials will continue monitoring the weather to determine if the pad area might see winds of a velocity which would require a "ride out" configuration, although this is not forecast. This period also will provide an opportunity for rest for the KSC work force. (end release) Hurricane Hugo, a class IV storm which is moving in a northwesterly direction towards the Atlantic coast, is projected to affect an area from the Florida-Georgia border to Cape Hatteras, NC. by sometime Friday. Silmultaneous preparations had been underway to roll the shuttle stack back to the Vehicle Assembly Building as well as continued launch processing preparations for the regularly scheduled launch. The crawler- transporter was positioned next to the shuttle and a vibration and strain guage had been attached to the IUS-Galileo payload, air conditioners set up to cool the payload and the payload bay doors were closed. The solid rocket booster on mobile launch platform 3 was removed and the platform moved out of the VAB to make room for the STS-34 stack if necessary. The space shuttle can stay on the pad if winds remain below hurricane force. NASA reports the shuttle cannot be moved on the crawler-transporter if the winds go above 40 knots (46 mph). The launch pad and the giant VAB were built to sustain winds of up to 125 mph. Weather has never before forced a rollback. A delay of at least several days would occur, depending on how long the launch is suspended. A rollback would also delay the STS-32 Columbia mission if room has to be made in the VAB for Atlantis. NSS Shuttle Launch Tour preparations continue pending further information on the status of the launch. There is some speculation that the preparations which had already been made to roll back the STS-34 stack may force a slip of one day - more word on this as it becomes available. At Launch complex 36, a decision has been made to not demate the FleetSatCom Navy communications satellite from its Atlas-Centaur (AC 68) rocket. Launch will be no earlier than Sunday. Virginia Attorney General Mary Sue Terry has filed a motion in Richmond Circuit Court to request an immediate shutdown of the Avtex Fibers rayon plant in Front Royal, VA. Terry says that the plant is continuing to leak dangerous amounts of PCBs into the Shenandoah River. Avtes is the nation's sole supplier of vital rayon yarn used in military and space shuttle rocket nozzles. The crew of the Atlantis had breakfast in Washington last Saturday with Vice President Quayle and his wife. The VP said he will be at the Cape for the launch of the STS-34 mission to underscore the fact that there is no danger from the Radio Thermal Isotope Generators during launch. Defense Daily reports that the 12.557 billion dollar FY '90 NASA appropriations bill survived full Senate deliberations without any major changes Tuesday night, but drug-related amendments could threaten funding levels set for the entire bill. A final vote on the VA, HUD and Independent Agencies bill will not occur until at least today or tomorrow in order to give Senate leadership time to work out a compromise funding plan to pay for the president's drug cleanup. Sen. Robert Dole of Kansas said that only drug-related amendments would be considered in an effort to prevent someone from coming in with "some other amendments cutting the space program" or any other program. Sen. Jake Garn called the bill a "remarkable achievement"..."but not one to be proud of." He further expressed the opinion that the allocation "short changes the future." The International Space University has announced its 1990 session will be held next summer in Toronto, Canada. Information can be obtained by calling the ISU offices in Boston @ 617-247-1987. The launch of the AMROC Koopman Express has been delayed until at least September 28th due to the Air Force's scheduled launch at a nearby site. This has been David Brandt reporting for the NSS Space Hotline. This tape will be updated as information warrants. ------------------------------ Date: 26 Sep 89 02:26:20 GMT From: haven!uvaarpa!hudson!astsun3!gsh7w@purdue.edu (Greg Scott Hennessy) Subject: Re: Pluto meets Neptune In article <5437@hplabsb.HP.COM> dsmith@hplabsb.UUCP (David Smith) writes: #The simulations (which someone reported on in this forum recently) show #that the orbits Neptune and Pluto are resonant, so that they will never #come close. While other similations show the orbit of Pluto to be chaotic, meaning that we can't predict how close they do come. -Greg Hennessy, University of Virginia USPS Mail: Astronomy Department, Charlottesville, VA 22903-2475 USA Internet: gsh7w@virginia.edu UUCP: ...!uunet!virginia!gsh7w ------------------------------ Date: 24 Sep 89 22:16:14 GMT From: mcsun!ukc!mucs!liv-cs!zanussi@uunet.uu.net Subject: Re: HIPPARCOS status report In article , A6@ESOC.BITNET (Hermann Schneider) writes: > > Hipparcos status report > (This is an exert from the ESOC news letter) > 5 firing attempts of Apogee Boost Motor between 10th and 25th Aug 89. > A definite understanding of the reasons for the failure could not be > be obtained. On-board investigations have been given up. Ground > laboratory test now to reproduce failure. > > Regards Hermann Schneider Being ignorant of a lot of what goes on here this may be a silly question, but why can't the space shuttle be used to grab, repair, and reposition Hipparcos? I thought that this was exactly the sort of thing for which the space shuttle was built in the first place. Just curious... Peter Anderton (aka Zanussi) ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 26 Sep 89 10:50:21 EDT From: bengu@hertz.njit.edu (golgen bengu (ie)) Subject: membership I would like to subscribe to your journal. Please let me know if there is any procedures for it. Thanks. Address BENGU@HERTZ.NJIT.EDU Golgen Bengu Asst. Prof. New Jersey Ins. of Tech. IE Dept. ------------------------------ Date: 26 Sep 89 18:05:54 GMT From: frooz!cfashap!willner@husc6.harvard.edu (Steve Willner) Subject: Risk of NOT launching Galileo {On September 25, a front page story in the Boston Globe recounted the opposition to the launch of Galileo by those who believe the risk of plutonium release is unacceptable. The story was written by the Globe's excellent science writer, David Chandler, and raises the same issues already discussed on sci.space. Following is my response to one of those issues in the form of a letter to Mr. Chandler.} Dear Mr. Chandler: Your article (Sept. 25) on the controversy over the launch of the Galileo space mission was excellent as far as it went, but your sources somehow overlooked a significant part of the story. Weather and climate are obviously important to all of us. The recent destructiveness of hurricane Hugo is a timely reminder of the importance of storm forecasting, and there is escalating concern over the much greater destruction that could be produced by global warming. In these circumstances, learning as much as we can about the Earth's atmosphere seems not just desirable but necessary. Galileo's mission is to study Jupiter's atmosphere. One can never be sure --- this is basic research we're talking about, after all --- but it seems inconceivable to me that studying atmospheric dynamics on Jupiter can fail to help us understand atmospheric dynamics on Earth. Thus there is considerable risk in _cancelling_ the launch of Galileo: the risk that something we fail to learn could turn out to be fatal to many of us. My personal assessment is that this risk is vastly greater than the risk of plutonium release in a launch accident, since both the probability of loss and the numbers of people affected are enormously greater. No doubt reasonable people can disagree on the magnitude of the risk, but the idea that launch cancellation is a risk of some degree is an element that was missing from the story. You are welcome to publish these comments as a "letter to the editor," but my real hope is that you will use them as a starting point for further investigation. The risk of _not_ launching needs to be considered. Sincerely yours, .... ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Steve Willner Phone 617-495-7123 Bitnet: willner@cfa 60 Garden St. FTS: 830-7123 UUCP: willner@cfa Cambridge, MA 02138 USA Internet: willner@cfa.harvard.edu ------------------------------ Date: 26 Sep 89 19:20:24 GMT From: rochester!dietz@louie.udel.edu (Paul Dietz) Subject: Re: Plutonium in space (was Risk of NOT launching Galileo) In article <20133@usc.edu> robiner@ganelon.usc.edu (Steve) writes: > Also, little known fact is that the military sat >whch was on challenger was nuclear powered. It's "little known" because it's utter bullshit. Paul F. Dietz dietz@cs.rochester.edu (Is udder bullshit an ox-y-moron?) ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 26 Sep 89 16:44:30 EDT From: "Gregory E. Gilbert" Subject: Edgar Rice Quayle on himself Would some one please tell me where the "Edgar Rice" came from. Please pardon my ignorance, I haven't been around long. Gregory E. Gilbert Academic Consultant University of South Carolina Columbia, South Carolina USA 29208 (803) 777-6015 ------------------------------ Date: 26 Sep 89 19:01:22 GMT From: pacific.mps.ohio-state.edu!gem.mps.ohio-state.edu!usc!ganelon.usc.edu!robiner@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu (Steve) Subject: Plutonium in space (was Risk of NOT launching Galileo) In article <203@cfa.HARVARD.EDU> willner@cfashap.harvard.edu (Steve Willner) writes: > >{On September 25, a front page story in the Boston Globe recounted the >opposition to the launch of Galileo by those who believe the risk of >plutonium release is unacceptable. The story was written by the Well, granted it is safer not to launch plutonium into space than to launch it. However, nuclear powered satillites are hardly new, and some have even re-entered and crashed on Earth (Russian spy-sat which crashed several years ago in Canada was a nuke. Also, little known fact is that the military sat whch was on challenger was nuclear powered. Its actually probably more dangerous to leave Galileo sitting in some wherehouse where it could hit by some low flying Cesna. =Steve= ------------------------------ Date: 26 Sep 89 16:16:37 GMT From: mailrus!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!utgpu!utzoo!henry@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu (Henry Spencer) Subject: Re: Pluto meets Neptune In article <2037@hudson.acc.virginia.edu> gsh7w@astsun3 (Greg Scott Hennessy) writes: >#The simulations (which someone reported on in this forum recently) show >#that the orbits Neptune and Pluto are resonant, so that they will never >#come close. > >While other similations show the orbit of Pluto to be chaotic, meaning >that we can't predict how close they do come. One can have chaotic orbits that nevertheless remain within well-defined bounds. My impression is that the orbit of Pluto is chaotic in that sense, not in the "it could wander off anywhere" sense. -- "Where is D.D. Harriman now, | Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology when we really *need* him?" | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu ------------------------------ Date: 26 Sep 89 17:01:29 GMT From: mailrus!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!utgpu!utzoo!henry@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu (Henry Spencer) Subject: Re: HIPPARCOS status report In article <1887@mva.cs.liv.ac.uk> zanussi@mva.cs.liv.ac.uk writes: >why can't the space shuttle be used to grab, repair, and reposition Hipparcos? >I thought that this was exactly the sort of thing for which the space shuttle >was built in the first place. Quite apart from the lack of an available shuttle mission, Hipparcos is in an orbit that is unreachable for at least two reasons. (1) It's a transfer orbit with a very high apogee, and the shuttle can only get to low orbits. (2) It's essentially equatorial, since the launch was from Kourou, and the shuttle can't get into an orbit with an inclination much less than the latitude of KSC. To solve (1), you need something like the Space Tug that was originally supposed to be part of the shuttle system. Solving (2) requires either a heftier Space Tug or an equatorial shuttle launch site (Cape York? :-)). -- "Where is D.D. Harriman now, | Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology when we really *need* him?" | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest V10 #99 *******************