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 ; Wed, 4 Oct 89 02:18:21 -0400 (EDT) Message-ID: Reply-To: space+@Andrew.CMU.EDU From: space-request+@Andrew.CMU.EDU To: space+@Andrew.CMU.EDU Date: Wed, 4 Oct 89 02:17:43 -0400 (EDT) Subject: SPACE Digest V10 #105 SPACE Digest Volume 10 : Issue 105 Today's Topics: News of the Week, Sep 28 Re: Edgar Rice Quayle on himself NASA Headline News for 09/28/89 (Forwarded) Neptune (and other planets') Pictures Concorde, NASP, shuttles, education (Re: Space Station Strangles NASP) Re: Risk of NOT launching Galileo Re: Concorde, NASP, shuttles Re: Edgar Rice Quayle on Mars. Re: Soviet Probe to Mars ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 28 Sep 89 20:16:51 GMT From: frooz!cfa250!mcdowell@husc6.harvard.edu (Jonathan McDowell) Subject: News of the Week, Sep 28 OK, I'm back! ------------------------------------------ Jonathan's Space Report Sep 28, 1989 (no.26) --------------------------------------------------------------------- The Soyuz TM-8/Mir/Progress M complex continues in orbit, crewed by Aleksandr Viktorenko and Aleksandr Serebrov. The station's orbit was altered on Sep 13 using the engine of Progress M. Progress M does not carry a recoverable capsule as has been reported elsewhere; recoveries will begin with the 6th Progress M mission. Modul' D is scheduled for launch Oct. 16 Atlantis/STS-34/Galileo is scheduled for launch on Oct 12. A classified payload was launched on Sep 6 by Titan II from Vandenberg. It is probably a US Navy WhiteCloud ocean surveillance cluster. The Resurs-F remote sensing satellite launched Sep 6 carries a West German materials processing experiment. Six small satellites successfully spaced Sep 14. Kosmos-2038 to Kosmos-2043 are probably communications relays used by the Soviet Navy. The Tsiklon vehicle is slowly replacing the Kosmos launch vehicle for a number of missions, and this 6-up launch is one of a series thought to be replacing a series of octuple launches on the Kosmos vehicle. Kosmos-2044 was launched by Soyuz from Plesetsk on Sep 15. It is an international biological research satellite, whose payload includes US experiments. Kosmos-2045 up on Sep 22, no details yet. FLTSATCOM F-8 launched by Atlas Centaur on Sep 25 from Canaveral. The US Navy UHF geostatioanry communications relay was finally launched after a 2 year delay; the previous launch vehicle was damaged in a pad accident. Atlas Centaur launches will from now on be carried out by General Dynamics rather than NASA. The last major NASA expendable vehicle launch is the COBE satellite set for no earlier than Nov 9 on a Delta. A Molniya communications satellite was launched from Plesetsk on Sep 27. The Aktivniy-IK magnetospheric research satellite was due for launch soon afterwards. Kosmos-2031 reentered on Sep 15 after 59 days in orbit; despite its unusual inclination and orbit it was probably a variant of the standard 4th generation spy satellite rather than a new model. (c) 1989 Jonathan McDowell ------------------------------ Date: 27 Sep 89 18:54:39 GMT From: hp-pcd!hpcvlx!gvg@hplabs.hp.com (Greg Goebel) Subject: Re: 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 Great Barsoom! Did ERB die out with my generation? (I was never a big fan myself -- by the time I knew about him I was too old to stand to read the stuff.) +---------------------------------------------------------------------+ | Greg Goebel | | Hewlett-Packard CWO / 1000 NE Circle Boulevard / Corvallis OR 97330 | | (503) 750-3969 | | INTERNET: gvg@hp-pcd | | HP DESK: GREG GOEBEL / HP3900 / 20 | +---------------------------------------------------------------------+ ------------------------------ Date: 28 Sep 89 17:08:23 GMT From: trident.arc.nasa.gov!yee@ames.arc.nasa.gov (Peter E. Yee) Subject: NASA Headline News for 09/28/89 (Forwarded) ----------------------------------------------------------------- NASA Headline News Thursday, Sept. 28, 1989 Audio:202/755-1788 ----------------------------------------------------------------- This is NASA Headline News for Thursday, September 28.... The New York Times quotes NASA officials as saying, "the space agency, long known for its technical expertise, has become so dependent on private contractors that it may be losing its ability to manage its operations, maintain safety and control costs." The Times story says a report to the Office of Management and Budget by Deputy Administrator J. R. Thompson and the NASA Inspector General also expressed concern over the erosion of the agency's civil service capability. The report also discussed "false certification of components, overpricing of parts and excessive profits" by contractors. The assessment was obtained by the newpaper under provisions of the Freedom of Information Act. Workers are continuing their investigation into the accidental dousing of the Columbia at the Orbiter Processing Facility at Kennedy Space Center last Sunday when a fire extinguisher system was accidentally triggered. Columbia was being readied for the STS-32 mission in mid-December. Processing for the December flight has resumed. Meanwhile, work continues on launch preparations for the Atlantis. A launch readiness review is scheduled for next Tuesday and Wednesday. The earliest possible launch window opens at 1:29 P.M., Eastern time, October 12. A circuit court judge in Richmond, Virginia has ruled against a state attorney general's request to shut down the Avtex Fibers plant in Front Royal. The facility is the sole supplier of high quality rayon yarn used in NASA and DoD solid rocket motors. The court did tell the plant that is must immediately stop discharging any toxic waste water into the Shenandoah River. And Friday evening, Spaceport USA at the Kennedy Space Center will be the site of the premiere performance of "Return to Flight", a musical composition commissioned by the NASA arts program. The gala affair will be attended by NASA officials and community digitaries from central Florida. NASA Select television will carry the concert beginning at 7:00 P.M., Eastern time. * * * _________________________________________________________________ Here's the broadcast schedule for public affairs events on NASA Select TV. All times are Eastern. Friday, September 29.... 7:00 P.M. Premiere concert of "Return to Flight" at KSC's Spaceport USA. Some cable TV firms will carry. Monday, October 2..... 12:00 noon Administrator Truly speaks to NASA centers on quality month. 1:00 P.M. A 30-minute Voyager/Neptune video summary prepared by JPL will transmitted. Thursday, October 5.... 11:30 A.M. NASA Update will be transmitted. 1:30 P.M. News briefing on Cosmic Background Explorer mission. All events and times are subject to change without notice. --------------------------------------------------------------- These reports are filed daily, Monday through Friday, at 12 noon, Eastern time. ----------------------------------------------------------------- A service of the Internal Communications Branch (LPC), NASA Headquarters, Washington, D.C. ------------------------------ Date: 28 Sep 89 02:54:29 GMT From: zephyr.ens.tek.com!tektronix!reed!odlin@uunet.uu.net (Iain Odlin) Subject: Neptune (and other planets') Pictures Gentlefolk: I have recently been working with some Neptune pictures and have a hunger for more Voyager/Viking/etc images to munch on. The following are the files I have (in the names they had when I got them): Neptune: 7best, cloud, triton, and whole. Plus the two 'faces' on Mars. I would very much like to receive any other images that exist in net.land, especially Voyager images. Thank you, -Iain Odlin -- ----------------------------------Iain Odlin---------------------------------- Box 1428, Reed College, Portland OR, 97202 odlin@reed -or- {ogccse, tektronix}!reed!odlin "Creatures of the night: SHUT UP!!!" ------------------------------ Date: 28 Sep 89 22:24:27 GMT From: cs.utexas.edu!ut-emx!walt.cc.utexas.edu!mentat@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu (Robert Dorsett) Subject: Concorde, NASP, shuttles, education (Re: Space Station Strangles NASP) In article <45e95c54.71d0@apollo.HP.COM> rehrauer@apollo.COM (Steve Rehrauer) writes: >In article <4983@omepd.UUCP> larry@omews10.intel.com (Larry Smith) writes: >What are we talking about here, a Chevy for getting to space or a whizzier >Concorde for trans-oceanic flights? My understanding is that the Concorde >is middling profitable on its small number of routes. Only after the immense development cost was written off. It's been making a tidy little profit for the last couple of years. >Why do you expect >a "space-plane", used in the same manner as the Concorde, to be a better >/ more_lucrative venture? Er, I may be confused, here (and I often am), but my understanding is that the National Aerospace Plane is intended to be a two-man hypersonic transport, with marginal payload. Right? Or are you referring to the proposed Boeing/ Lockheed/McDonnell-Douglas SST? What you're *describing* sounds suspiciously like HOTOL. >If there isn't a Concorde route to of_destination> today, why not? Wouldn't the answers apply to the same >questions asked re: the NASP? Not really. Concorde is restricted due to where it can fly: the routes it makes money on are over-water--most countries do not care for supersonic overflights. A space-plane could likely get away with flying over inhabited areas, without the penalty of a discernable sonic boom. Then again, if we're really talking about the SST, the advantage in that--all along--has been that an American SST would be much larger than Concorde (which is a really puny little airplane, little larger than a Caravelle), in- corporate new technologies, and learn from all the mistakes of Concorde. Moreover, a major motivator is the incredible boom in Pacific Rim traffic over the past ten years--which is projected to outstrip our capability of servicing it within a few years. >If they "see the potential" and it's so sure-fire golden, why then they'll >either a) build it, or b) keep their near-sighted eyes on next month's >bottom line and let the [ Japanese | French | Russians | other ambitious >nation ] build it. I'm not convinced the role of Washington should be to >chivvy said aerospace companies into taking a long-term view by lavishing >taxpayer money on them. At least, not for this program. Personally, I'd rather see taxpayer money wasted on the NASP or SST than the Shuttle. (just thought I'd throw that in to piss off a lot of people :-)). >budget on more Galileos and Voyagers and Vikings and Magellans, and the other >half on pushing ("paying for") excellent ("better" isn't good enough with >things in their current state) science & mathematics programs in our schools. Wasting more money on education won't help things. First we've got to fire the current crop of administrators and teachers--and nobody's suggested that; all we hear are proposals to deify the worthless slobs. In my experience, 3/4 of my teachers were marginal, and perhaps 1 in 10 should never be permitted around children. This ignores the basic problems of curriculum (and keep in mind that I went to good schools!). A number of states have, in fact, increased the funds allocated to education. But all they've accomplished has been to increase the size of the "educationist" bureaucracy, and lowered the quality of education (by most independent standards). ------------------------------ Date: 28 Sep 89 16:26:08 GMT From: frooz!cfa.HARVARD.EDU@husc6.harvard.edu (Steve Willner) Subject: Re: Risk of NOT launching Galileo From article <14745@bfmny0.UU.NET>, by tneff@bfmny0.UU.NET (Tom Neff): > This and another followup suggest we'll learn things from Jupiter's > weather that we can't learn by studying our own. Granted. But this was > not quite the issue. The original issue was whether it is too risky to launch Galileo because of the chance that plutonium might be released. The response is that there are considerably larger risks in NOT launching Galileo. > Will we learn materially more about OUR OWN > weather from studying Jupiter than we can from studying Earth? This is a different question entirely. It is the appropriate question if one is asked to choose EITHER Galileo OR Earth observations. That was not the issue originally being addressed. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- 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: 29 Sep 89 01:01:13 GMT From: eugene@eos.arc.nasa.gov (Eugene Miya) Subject: Re: Concorde, NASP, shuttles It's not clear to me that SSTs will ever be economical forms of transport. Significant advances in propulsion systems are required. At least in the near future. I would not say the two US SST proposals significantly differed from the slightly smaller Concorde in size. They were in the same size class. New Pacific markets might make a difference, but Garrett Hardin, the biologist, wrote a letter to Science noting that a 2 hour flight to Tokyo would only put a person there "in the middle of the night." "Economic markets can't be a serious consideration," but I am certainly aware of the companies who do much Concorde business. But then who in the US wants to do business in Japan? 8) Okay, Korea, or China, etc. (Big eh?) Today Brian Toon gave a seminar on the ozone hole and SSTs were once again raised as a concern. But then some of this is my opinion. Another gross generalization from --eugene miya, NASA Ames Research Center, eugene@aurora.arc.nasa.gov resident cynic at the Rock of Ages Home for Retired Hackers: "You trust the `reply' command with all those different mailers out there?" "If my mail does not reach you, please accept my apology." {ncar,decwrl,hplabs,uunet}!ames!eugene Live free or die. ------------------------------ Date: 28 Sep 89 04:01:13 GMT From: cbmvax!mitchell@uunet.uu.net (Fred Mitchell - QA) Subject: Re: Edgar Rice Quayle on Mars. The merest thought that we have to rely on the likes of Quayle to foward the ever-ambitious and challenging Space Program is a very sad thought indeed. Kinda like relying on a monkey to type up Shakespeare. :-( ------------------------------ Date: 28 Sep 89 04:33:30 GMT From: ibmpa!szabonj@uunet.uu.net (nick szabo) Subject: Re: Soviet Probe to Mars In article <1989Sep14.155930.25532@utzoo.uucp> henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) writes: >In article <16367@watdragon.waterloo.edu> dapike@dahlia.waterloo.edu (David Pik e) writes: >>... According to CTV, among the last photos to get out showed >>SOMETHING coming at it!! ... >>If anybody out there knows what I'm talking about, please let me know >>what is supposed to have REALLY happened... > >A slightly garbled report. The facts are: >[...] >4. At least one of the pictures taken shortly before this showed what > might have been an object nearby. If it was real, it might > have been either (a) debris in Phobos's orbit, or (b) Phobos 2's > own jettisoned propulsion module. >[...] Are the Soviets publishing these pics? We've got a bunch of eager image processors who are getting tired of the same old Mars Face (which looks more like a rhesus monkey than a human, BTW). Comparing "cleaned-up" final Phobos pictures with spacecraft blueprints might tell us if it was really a part fallen off the spacecraft or something else. "Do not put off until tommorrow what can be enjoyed today." Josh Billings -- -------------------------------------------- Nick Szabo uunet!ibmsupt!szabonj These opinions are not related to Big Blue's ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest V10 #105 *******************