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/usr11/tm2b/space/space.dl@andrew.cmu.edu (->+dist+/afs/andrew.cmu.edu/usr11/tm2b/space/space.dl) (->ota+space.digests) ID ; Sat, 21 Oct 89 16:44:05 -0400 (EDT) Message-ID: Reply-To: space+@Andrew.CMU.EDU From: space-request+@Andrew.CMU.EDU To: space+@Andrew.CMU.EDU Date: Sat, 21 Oct 89 16:43:41 -0400 (EDT) Subject: SPACE Digest V10 #153 SPACE Digest Volume 10 : Issue 153 Today's Topics: Next Christic action? Re: Try thinking before stinking Re: Pharmacies in Space Re: Trump Station Re: SPACE Digest V10 #117 Re: Hauling asteroids about Re: 5th orbiter? Detecting solar radio noise bursts from major flares. Re: TDRS vs military Re: An Idea Re: Plutonium (was: South Florida Environmental Reader #12) Re: sterilization of Galileo CNN Quote of the Day Re: What will the next ten years bring? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 14 Oct 89 19:36:15 GMT From: jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!utgpu!radio.astro!helios.physics!griffin@rutgers.edu (Prof. A. Griffin) Subject: Next Christic action? Disclaimer: I am NOT professor Griffin. If you use "F", please check the attribution against the signature. With all this talk of plutonium oxide poisoning of Florida, the Christic incident has overlooked an even more pressing danger. NASA admits freely that the next shuttle flight will expel thousands of tons of a demonstrably dangerous material in a cloud over the launch site. This material kills hundreds of people each year, many of them small children. Just ten or twenty grams is sufficient to kill somebody if taken into the lungs. In short, the shuttle will release enough hydrogen oxide to kill everybody in Florida, if properly administered. NASA claims that the material will be vaporised, and the resulting cloud will disperse harmlessly, but the stable phase of this material at the temperatures found in Florida is the liquid phase, from which all known deaths have resulted. To maintain that the cloud will remain a gas, then, goes against the very foundations of thermodynamics. Me must alert the ignorant masses of this pressing and very real danger, caused not by an accident, but in the normal operation of the shuttle! They must be informed, so that they can implore their congressmen to ban the production, distribution, and disposal of hydrogen oxide, especially in liquid form. Donations can be left in the box at the front of the room. Thank you for your attention. For those of you who haven't caught on yet, that was a joke. No flames, please. Now, a serious space question. All the talk on the net is convincing me that the American space program is terribly inefficient, and isn't likely to do more than scrape by with subsistence level funding. How far away are the Japanese from manned space flight? How, on the whole, is their program, and is it efficient? My prediction is that within thirty years the Japanese space program will have launched a rendezvous and recovery mission to an earth-approaching metallic asteroid, and will be sending it to earth orbit. The American congressmen, upon hearing that the Japanese will soon be selling refined metals dirt-cheap to any nation which wants them, will demand to know why NASA didn't do this years previously. Finally, some bright lawyer types will go to court, trying to convince a judge that the asteroidal metal belongs to all mankind (personkind?) and that the Japanese can't sell it, as it would undermine (no pun intended) US metals extraction interests. They'd then try to get an injunction to prevent anybody from using the metals in the rock, since it would put a lot of hard-working constituents out of work. Plausible? So, who will have a real industrial presence in space first? The US or Japan? -- Christopher Neufeld....Just a graduate student | "I'm a scientist; cneufeld@pro-generic.pnet01.crash | nothing shocks me" griffin@helios.physics.utoronto.ca | - Indiana Jones "Don't edit reality for the sake of simplicity" | ------------------------------ Date: 16 Oct 89 04:52:59 GMT From: johnsonr@boulder.colorado.edu (JOHNSON RICHARD J) Subject: Re: Try thinking before stinking cr10+@andrew.cmu.edu (Christopher John Rapier) writes: > Lets say it it smashes into the ocean and, say, 5% of > the packing fails and 2 pounds of plutonium escape. Can any of you give > more than a hapazard guess as to what effect that will happen to the > environment in that area? ... > Even if only 2 pound of plutonium > escape into the atmosphere (only 5%) how many people will this kill over > the next 20 years? > the next 20 years? Do you have any idea yourself? Or are you just (perhaps subconsciously) using the "ask a nasty question" technique? Are we just supposed to assume since the horrible devil radiation is involved that the answers to those questions are just too horrendous to contemplate? Or maybe you really were asking if the rest of us actually knew the answers. In my case, I know and trust enough to want to get on with the launch. I don't know the exact biological effects of the kind of release you proposed. Yes, there's a level of risk involved. But can you put numbers on that risk? Please? :-) | Richard Johnson johnsonr@spot.colorado.edu | | CSC doesn't necessarily share my opinions, but is welcome to. | | Power Tower...Dual Keel...Phase One...Allison/bertha/Colleen...?... | | Space Station Freedom is Dead. Long Live Space Station Freedom! | ------------------------------ Date: 12 Oct 89 11:00:20 GMT From: ktl@csvax.caltech.edu (Kian-Tat Lim) Subject: Re: Pharmacies in Space In article <1989Oct11.001602.25904@cs.rochester.edu>, Paul Dietz writes: >In article <22510001@hpcvia.CV.HP.COM> Steven Tenney writes: >>Also, I thought I overheard the mention of genetic engineering on a space >>station as well. > >This would make no sense. There is no need for microgravity to >do genetic engineering. No, but there is a need for isolation. Potentially dangerous genetically- engineered bacteria or viruses would find a much less fertile environment upon escaping from a space station than they would upon escaping from an earthbound lab. I still doubt that it's economical to do in space, as the labs still need to be redundantly isolated from the crew quarters (or do we let the lab techs be guinea pigs?). -- Kian-Tat Lim (ktl@wagvax.caltech.edu, KTL @ CITCHEM.BITNET, GEnie: K.LIM1) ------------------------------ Date: 12 Oct 89 18:38:24 GMT From: mailrus!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!utgpu!utzoo!henry@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu (Henry Spencer) Subject: Re: Trump Station In article <10904@dasys1.UUCP> rsweeney@dasys1.UUCP (Robert Sweeney) writes: >... his personal fortune is estimated at >"only" around $ 1.7 billion. While this is an incredible amount of money, >it's not enough to run a personal space program. It's enough to run quite a large personal space program if it's done right. Remember, that's the equivalent of about 17 billion NASA dollars. -- A bit of tolerance is worth a | Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology megabyte of flaming. | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 12 Oct 89 15:17:31 CDT From: "John G. Schroder " Subject: Re: SPACE Digest V10 #117 john, Ill let5 you have the entire island for some uw's. there's already a 50% harbor there. wanna deal ???` Draco ------------------------------ Date: 12 Oct 89 18:44:40 GMT From: mailrus!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!utgpu!utzoo!henry@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu (Henry Spencer) Subject: Re: Hauling asteroids about In article <562@telesoft.com> roger@telesoft.com (Roger Arnold @prodigal) writes: >> The fuel requirement for shoving one of them around with chemical engines, >> or even fission rockets, is totally ridiculous... > >You're slipping, Henry. First the bit about oxygen on Mars, and now >this.. >... Exhaust >velocity of 10**4 mps, using a plasma torch... Notice the words "chemical engines, or even fission rockets" in what I wrote. If you're willing to assume 10kps 20kN plasma engines, and a power source that can run them, then the situation changes. PS Don't forget the cooling system for the engines, which has to dissipate 100MW of heat at your assumed 50% efficiency. I doubt very much that regenerative cooling with 2 kg/s of fuel will suffice. -- A bit of tolerance is worth a | Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology megabyte of flaming. | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu ------------------------------ Date: 12 Oct 89 18:36:52 GMT From: mailrus!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!utgpu!utzoo!henry@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu (Henry Spencer) Subject: Re: 5th orbiter? In article V071PZP4@UBVMSC.CC.BUFFALO.EDU writes: >... didn't NASA, in the 1970's intend to upgrade Enterprise to >a space-worthy vehicle after drop testing? This was the intent, at least officially. (References on request.) > If the book I read is correct, Challenger (Structural Test Article-99) >was to become the drop test vehicle after Enterprise (Orbiter Vehicle-100) >was upgraded. NASA relaized that Challenger's airframe was lighter, so they >changed their mind - Challenger was built into a fully-functional orbiter, >and Enterprise was left a drop-tester. There weren't any more drop tests planned, actually. OV-099 was originally meant for things like structural testing. When Enterprise's weight problems got serious, 099 was tested a bit less severely than originally planned and was rebuilt into a complete orbiter. > I'm sure Enterprise's weight problem could be reduced... I'm not sure; if the weight problems are in the structure itself, this could be pretty difficult. -- A bit of tolerance is worth a | Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology megabyte of flaming. | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu ------------------------------ Date: 11 Oct 89 21:05:35 GMT From: ubc-cs!alberta!calgary!xenlink!clroslyn!clleth!cary@beaver.cs.washington.edu (Cary Oler) Subject: Detecting solar radio noise bursts from major flares. Do any of you guys monitor the sun for flare-associated noise-bursts (ie. Type IV solar radio noise bursts)? I would be most interested in hearing from anyone who has accomplished this or knows how to accomplish this. I need to know what type of demodulation method works best (if there is a preferred method) and what frequencies produce reliable results. I realize that brief ionization periods following major flares can pretty-well blackout many shortwave frequencies, but I would prefer a more reliable method of detecting flares through radio noise bursts. If anyone is knowledgable in this area, or has some idea's that might help, I would appreciate hearing from you. Please e-mail responses. Thanks! -Cary -- "Women can keep a secret just as well as men, but it takes more of them to do it." UUCP: !uunet!{ubc-cs|utai}!calgary!xenlink!clroslyn!clleth!cary ------------------------------ Date: 13 Oct 89 16:37:14 GMT From: m2c!wpi!goldmeer@husc6.harvard.edu (Jeffrey S Goldmeer) Subject: Re: TDRS vs military > Well, before concluding that it's invulnerable, look at some of the work > that's been done on using a lunar flyby to get substantial payloads into > a retrograde orbit. A few tons of ice cubes in retrograde Clarke orbit > will clean out all the comsats, early-warning satellites, etc. etc., and > then go away. (One hears that when those lunar trajectories were discovered > in the West, somebody noticed that there had been Soviet research interest > in them for years...) Can someone please tell me what a "retrograde Clarke orbit" is, and how one would place a payload into one via a lunar flyby. Thanks in advance. ****************************************************************************** * Jeffrey S. Goldmeer Mechanical Engineering Dept. * * Worcester Polytechnic Institute * * 100 Institute Road * * Internet: goldmeer@wpi.wpi.edu Worcester, MA 01609 * *============================================================================* * " Scientists are peeping toms at the Keyhole of Eternity " * * -- Arthur Koestler * ****************************************************************************** ------------------------------ Date: 13 Oct 89 21:18:32 GMT From: agate!typhoon.Berkeley.EDU!gwh@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU (George William Herbert) Subject: Re: An Idea In article <5096@uhccux.uhcc.hawaii.edu> goldader@uhccux.UUCP (Jeff Goldader) writes: >In article <1989Oct12.220445.14557@agate.berkeley.edu> gwh@typhoon.Berkeley.EDU (George William Herbert) writes: > >> Take a Pegasus rocket, being developed now, and mount it on top >>of a surplus A-12 (variant of SR-71, the ones outfitted to carry a drone >>on top). > >If I remember correctly, even the use of the GTD-21 drones (basically a >scaled-down J-58 engine with wing-stubs attached, and a bay for ELINT or >photo stuff) wasn't all that successful. In fact, one M-12 (A-12 was >the CIA version of SR-71 (actually, the SR-71 came after the A-12), M-12 >was the designation for the few (2? 3?) A-12s modified to carry the drones) >was destroyed in a launch accident, when the drone pitched down and >broke the M-12's back. Also killed the launch officer, although I >believe the pilot managed to eject from the wreckage. > >If a drone specifically designed to separate at high mach numbers couldn't >survive the separation, I really doubt Pegasus could. I'm not an >engineer, but I think the aerodynamics would prohibit such a launch. The plane that had the drone impact wasn't destroyed. The drone operator was killed, but the plane flew back to base and landed. (detail) The drone was sucessful in all the other launches, which were lots. The Pegasus had BETTER be tough enough to fly through a supersonic shock wave: it does so by itself on normal launches. george william herbert ------------------------------ Date: 16 Oct 89 03:12:21 GMT From: portal!cup.portal.com!mmm@uunet.uu.net (Mark Robert Thorson) Subject: Re: Plutonium (was: South Florida Environmental Reader #12) jans@tekgvs.LABS.TEK.COM (Jan Steinman) says: > and effect.) Re-entry of plutonium fueled spacecraft also disperses finely > divided plutonium oxide, adding to the global burden of a dangerous substance > that didn't exist on Earth until 1941. Not true. A few years ago, SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN ran an article on a natural atomic reactor which formed in a particularly rich bed of uranium ore in Africa. Admittedly, this geologic phenomenon is rare, perhaps unique. But in terms of literal truth, your statement is false. ------------------------------ Date: 14 Oct 89 19:08:00 GMT From: mailrus!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!utgpu!utzoo!yunexus!tony@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu (Tony Wallis) Subject: Re: sterilization of Galileo pyron@skvax1.csc.ti.com (..) : | Okay, so we have some hypothetical microbes which can withstand (in | order to travel to Jupiter and live there in comfort) vacuum, hard (and | I mean hard) radiation, high temperatures and high pressure. Pray | tell, then, how does one sterilize the probe? | Magic incantations? - Dillon Pyron Yes. Ask the people at the Christic Institute to be gracious losers and to perform the ceremonies. :-) ------------------------------ Date: 17 Oct 89 03:09:03 GMT From: rochester!yamauchi@louie.udel.edu (Brian Yamauchi) Subject: CNN Quote of the Day From CNN Headline News (10/16/89) : "Jupiter is composed primarily of dust and gas. Scientists believe these two primordial elements created the universe..." _______________________________________________________________________________ Brian Yamauchi University of Rochester yamauchi@cs.rochester.edu Computer Science Department _______________________________________________________________________________ ------------------------------ Date: 10 Oct 89 09:45:00 GMT From: eru!luth!sunic!ericom!radar.ericsson.se!kiere!tp_asr@bloom-beacon.mit.edu Subject: Re: What will the next ten years bring? From article <8910061639.AA24396@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU> : > I'm interested to know, from the experts out there, what are your > views on what will the next ten years bring in the relm of space? > What *new* technologies will be developed and are we ever going to > see a space station in our lifetime (within the next 10 years). I can't call myself expert on these matter, pessimist would be a better word for it. So here is some gruesome predictions of my part: 89 - Galileo is launched (HOORAY) 90 - Hubble telescope postponed, reason; not enough launching cabability for military and comercial payloads. 91 - Galileo projects terminates in-flight, reason; not enough money for the Space station. 92 - Space station design reduced because of budgetary strains. 93 - Hubble telescope terminated, reason; not enough money for the reduced Space station design. 94 - Great festivities at the 25-th anniversary of Apollo 11 (all of Holly-Wood was there !) 95 - Space station design reduced further, reason; budget strains. 96 - U.S government proudly presents its plans for.... a post stamp commemorating the 20-th anniversary of the Viking mission to Mars. 97 - USSR commemorates 30-th anniversary of sputnik by landing the first men on Mars :-) 98 - The space station is terminated because lack of money. 99 - VERY GREAT festivities commemorating 30-th Apollo 11 anniversary. ======================================================================= Leif Sterner ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest V10 #153 *******************