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 ; Sun, 29 Oct 89 23:00:34 -0500 (EST) Message-ID: Reply-To: space+@Andrew.CMU.EDU From: space-request+@Andrew.CMU.EDU To: space+@Andrew.CMU.EDU Date: Sun, 29 Oct 89 22:59:47 -0500 (EST) Subject: SPACE Digest V10 #165 SPACE Digest Volume 10 : Issue 165 Today's Topics: Galileo Status for 10/18/89 [Corrected] (Forwarded) Re: Try thinking before stinking Galileo Spun/Despun section communications Re: How the GALILEO mission may end. NASA Select Radio Programs Schedule (Forwarded) Re: NASA Select Radio Programs Schedule (Forwarded) Re: More on the Christics NASA Headline News for 10/18/89 (Forwarded) Re: Threat to delay Shuttle launch Re: Plutonium in Earth orbit Re: Geyser-like plume discovered on Neptune's moon Triton (Forwarded) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 19 Oct 89 04:04:48 GMT From: trident.arc.nasa.gov!yee@ames.arc.nasa.gov (Peter E. Yee) Subject: Galileo Status for 10/18/89 [Corrected] (Forwarded) In the Galileo status report just filed, there is reference to Atlantis being over Brownsville Texas on Rev 6 when Galileo was deployed. It was actually Rev 5 and the geographic range varies in description from Sonora, Mexico, through Chihuahua, Mexico to Brownsville, Texas (a matter of preference, actually) but the orbit is Rev 5, and NOT 6. Charles Redmond, NASA Headquarters Newsroom ------------------------------ Date: 17 Oct 89 22:09:47 GMT From: aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!masticol@rutgers.edu (Steve Masticola) Subject: Re: Try thinking before stinking Henry Spencer writes: > The RTGs are demonstrably capable of surviving reentry. What's the problem? > Even if they didn't survive, the radioisotope release is insignificant > compared to what happens when a Soviet radarsat reactor core reenters. Several problems. To wit: - Nothing goes right all the time. It's a tradeoff. But what is being traded for what? Say that there's a 10% probability that an RTG will re-enter and release plutonium. Further say that a release will cause approximately 100 fatalities. The designers of an RTG-powered satellite are, on average, condemning 10 people to death. But for what? Knowledge? National security? Or simply for convenience in power systems engineering? Because there are other power sources that can be used in Earth orbit - plenty of free insolation all the time. It's exactly the same tradeoff that Ford made when they decided that 800 people's lives weren't worth correcting a sharp flange in the Pinto's differential. Unfortunately, the folks who burned to death weren't consulted about the decision. - Just because Soviet reactor cores re-enter and plutonium bombs have been blown off in the atmosphere doesn't make it right to release more pollution. If it were, then we might as well go ahead and put trichlor down the wells and spray the blueberries with dioxin, because that's been done before too. I'm not paranoid about nuclear power, in or out of space. But it is dangerous. We have to know what chances we take, and why. ------------------------------ Date: 19 Oct 89 20:02:46 GMT From: dftsrv!drax!buck@ames.arc.nasa.gov (Loren (Buck) Buchanan) Subject: Galileo Spun/Despun section communications Hi Netlanders, The question I have is how does the Despun section (the part with most of the instruments) communicate with the Spun section (the part with the main antenna and most of the computers)? Thanks & B Cing U Buck Loren "Buck" Buchanan | internet: buck@drax.gsfc.nasa.gov | standard disclaimer CSC, 1100 West St. | uucp: ...!ames!dftsrv!drax!buck | "By the horns of a Laurel, MD 20707 | phonenet: (301) 497-2531 or 9898 | sky demon..." ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 19 Oct 89 17:08:47 EDT From: Jeffrey R Kell Subject: Re: How the GALILEO mission may end. To: "Kendall Auel;685-2425;61-028;;pooter" , space@andrew.cmu.edu On 5 Oct 89 17:40:46 GMT you said: >In article <8910051421.AA01049@decwrl.dec.com> klaes@wrksys.dec.com (CUP/ASG, > MLO5-2/G1 6A, 223-3283 05-Oct-1989 1016) writes: >> Regarding the GALILEO's mission end at Jupiter, the following >> excerpts are from Steve Willner's August 1989 edition of CANOPUS: >> [] or a "death plunge" into Io, the volcanic moon. >Oh, Great!! Just go ahead and contaminate the pristine Io with >radioactive plutonium and Earth germs!! Wait til I tell the >Christic Institute about THIS one. :-) :-) >Kendall Auel kendalla@pooter.wv.tek.com Yeah, now what if it finds a "large black monolith" orbiting Io? And the dark spot on Jupiter starts growing exponentially? And something "zaps" Galileo's atmospheric probe? Open the pod bay doors, Hal... ****************************** * "Research is what I'm doing when I don't know what I'm doing." * -Wernher von Braun ****************************** +-----------------------------------+----------------------------------+ | Jeffrey R Kell, Dir Tech Services | UTC Postmaster/Listserv co-ord. | | Admin Computing, 117 Hunter Hall |Bitnet: JEFF@UTCVM.BITNET | | Univ of Tennessee at Chattanooga |JEFF%UTCVM.BITNET@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU | | Chattanooga, TN 37403 | Bell: (615)-755-4551 | +-----------------------------------+----------------------------------+ ------------------------------ Date: 17 Oct 89 20:33:58 GMT From: trident.arc.nasa.gov!yee@ames.arc.nasa.gov (Peter E. Yee) Subject: NASA Select Radio Programs Schedule (Forwarded) The next series of radio programs will be on Select, Monday, October 23rd at 1:00 PM Eastern. The programs will include: The Space Story Four Weekly Programs 4 mins., 30 sec. each #1348 Setting Discovery to Music (Feat: Jane Ira Bloom) USE: 10/23/89 thru 10/29/89 #1349 Contact! The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (Feat: Michael Klein, JPL) USE: 10/30/89 thru 11/05/89 #1350 COBE, The Cosmic Detective (Feat: John Mather, GSFC) USE: 11/06/89 thru 11/12/89 #1351 Pegasus - The Winged Launch Vehicle (Feat: Bob Pincus, GSFC) USE: 11/13/89 thru 11/19/89 NASA Select is on Satcom F-2R, Transponder 13, 72 degrees West Longitude. ------------------------------ Date: 18 Oct 89 16:28:23 GMT From: crdgw1!crdos1!davidsen@uunet.uu.net (Wm E Davidsen Jr) Subject: Re: NASA Select Radio Programs Schedule (Forwarded) In article <33878@ames.arc.nasa.gov>, yee@trident.arc.nasa.gov (Peter E. Yee) writes: | The next series of radio programs will be on Select, Monday, | October 23rd at 1:00 PM Eastern. The programs will include: | | The Space Story | Four Weekly Programs 4 mins., 30 sec. each | | #1348 Setting Discovery to Music | (Feat: Jane Ira Bloom) | USE: 10/23/89 thru 10/29/89 | [ etc ] For those of us who don't have access to transponder whatever, is there a place from which these may be ordered? -- bill davidsen (davidsen@crdos1.crd.GE.COM -or- uunet!crdgw1!crdos1!davidsen) "The world is filled with fools. They blindly follow their so-called 'reason' in the face of the church and common sense. Any fool can see that the world is flat!" - anon ------------------------------ Date: 18 Oct 89 06:05:04 GMT From: crash!orbit!pnet51!schaper@nosc.mil (S Schaper) Subject: Re: More on the Christics They are NOT any brand of Christian, historically defined. I suspect that they are a sub-group of the radical-left combined with New-Age/Hindu type thought. They might _call_ themselves Christian, perhaps - I don't know, but if you look at the past 1950 odd years of Christian thought, they don't fit. UUCP: {amdahl!bungia, uunet!rosevax, chinet, killer}!orbit!pnet51!schaper ARPA: crash!orbit!pnet51!schaper@nosc.mil INET: schaper@pnet51.cts.com ------------------------------ Date: 19 Oct 89 03:32:27 GMT From: trident.arc.nasa.gov!yee@ames.arc.nasa.gov (Peter E. Yee) Subject: NASA Headline News for 10/18/89 (Forwarded) [This status report is of course now out of date, since as you all know the shuttle successfully lifted off. NASA news will be late or spotty due to earthquake induced delays. -PEY] ----------------------------------------------------------------- Wednesday, Oct. 18, 1989 Audio: 202/755-1788 ----------------------------------------------------------------- This is NASA Headline News for Wednesday, October 18th...... The crew of the space shuttle Atlantis boarded the orbiter about 9:45 this morning, hoping the weather will coopeate this afternoon and permit launch...now scheduled for 12:50 P.M., Eastern time. There are rainshowers in the vicinity of the Kennedy Space Center this morning. Yesterday's launch had to be scrubbed when rain began falling within 20 miles of the shuttle landing facility. This is in violation of launch commit criteria for a Return to Launch Site abort situation. Weather permitting...launch today is scheduled to occur at the opening of the launch window at 12:50 P.M. The window for launch today closes at 1:19 P.M. Aerospace Daily reports House-senate conferees late yesterday approved a $12.4 billion NASA appropriations bill for fiscal year 1990. The compromise measure includes $1.8 billion for the Space Station Freedom program. The appropriations bill now must be approved by the full House and Senate. A NASA spokesman said yesterday that a computer virus has infected one of its networks and is spreading anti-nuclear messages related to the Galileo spaceprobe. NASA spokesman Charles Redmond said the virus, discovered on Monday, is in the form of a computer "worm" which is placed into the operating system of a computer and spreads by boring into other computers contacted through networks. Redmond said the rogue computer program was apparently placed on a computer in France hooked up to NASA's Space Physics Analysis Network. The network is not connected to the computer systems that operate either Galileo or the space shuttle, and Redmond said the program has not done any damage. *********** ----------------------------------------------------------------- STS-34 television coverage NASA Select television will be providing near continous coverage of the entire STS-34 mission, including in flight activities and change of shift status brifings from Mission Control in Houston. If launch of Atlantis occurs this afternoon, landing is scheduled for Monday, October 23rd at Edwards Air Force Base, California. ----------------------------------------------------------------- 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: 18 Oct 89 09:41:03 GMT From: agate!helios.ee.lbl.gov!hellgate.utah.edu!mailrus!uwm.edu!ux1.cso.uiuc.edu!ux1.cso.uiuc.edu!uxa.cso.uiuc.edu!sfn20715@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU Subject: Re: Threat to delay Shuttle launch Actually, I think it will be interesting to see what happens. Not only will NASA have the usual large number of authoritative people trained in keeping spectators out of the launch team's way, but you can probably imagine what the Department o' Defense would think of people trying to put their launch schedule even further behind. We'd see some security then, by god! Seriously, though, have you ever seen the precautions NASA takes to make sure no unauthorized person is within a mile of the launch pad, let alone on top of it??? If the christic whatevers want to block the shuttle with their bodies, they will have a very very very hard time of doing so... (Of course, I would be very happy to let the whole bunch of em stand oh about five feet away from the SRB's during ignition. :-) No flames, all you christic whatevers out there! (Slight pun intended...) ) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Dont listen to me, I'm only an undergrad!" ------------------------------ Date: 17 Oct 89 21:32:37 GMT From: swrinde!cs.utexas.edu!hellgate.utah.edu!ug.utah.edu!tjones@ucsd.edu (Thouis Jones) Subject: Re: Plutonium in Earth orbit masticol writes: >Thouis Jones writes: [long flame removed] >My point (and I had hoped I wouldn't need to spell it out in words of ><=2 syllables) is that there is a difference between a prudent risk >and a stupid gamble. Launching a hazardous payload that has a small >chance of returning to Earth is a prudent risk. Launching an RTG which >_will_ re-enter uncontrolled is a stupid gamble. And my point is that your definitions of prudent risk and stupid gamble are neither compatible with mine nor necessarily right. Just because you have a terrible fear of radiation falling out of the sky on you doesn't mean that we should stop using it in RTG's. If it bothers you that much why don't you move to another planet :-) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Email: tjones@ug.utah.edu "Beware of Quantization Errors." -prof man page "My morals are in no way responsive to your arguments. Shut up." ------------------------------ Date: 19 Oct 89 19:32:03 GMT From: henry.jpl.nasa.gov!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!jpl-devvax!leem@ames.arc.nasa.gov (Lee Mellinger) Subject: Re: Geyser-like plume discovered on Neptune's moon Triton (Forwarded) In article <2500@ibmpa.UUCP> szabonj@ibmpa.UUCP (Nick Szabo) writes: :In article <33233@ames.arc.nasa.gov> yee@trident.arc.nasa.gov (Peter E. Yee) writes: :>Charles Redmond :>crossing the boundary of our solar system. The plutonium-based :>generators that provide electricity to the spacecraft are :>expected to keep alive the computers, science instruments and :>radio transmitter for up to 25 or 30 more years. :> As of today, the long-lived project will be known as the :>Voyager Interstellar Mission. The Voyager Project is managed for :>NASA's Office of Space Science And Applications by the Jet :>Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. :Speaking as a person experienced in the ins and outs of JPL beauracracy :(but not speaking _for_ anybody but myself, of course :-) I can't help :but wonder about the proposed scientific merits of this extended mission. : :The "Voyager Interstellar Mission" is a new twist. There are a large :number of people working on Voyager right now, and quite naturally they :need something to do. The VIM requires only a very small staff, most of the Voyager folks are leaving for other jobs, mostly on the upcoming missions. : :Meanwhile, we are launching the Galileo and Magellan missions. These :projects plan to return at least an order of magnitude more data than :Voyager, and will put a high demand on the communications networks and :computational facilities. In 1992 we will launch Mars Observer, and :later in the 90's CRAF and Cassini. There are not enough resources to :support both these new missions and the "extended missions" of the Voyagers, :Pioneers, etc. Both Voyagers, two of the Pioneers, and ICE all require the :use of our largest and rarest (70m) antennae. Building a new 70m dish :would cost and estimated $2 billion: the price of a new space shuttle. I don't know where you got this number but I think that this in the neighborhood of 2 orders of magnitude too high. The cost to build a 100M az-el deep space stations as designed in 1985 were $58 MILLION. :If we support the extended missions, we could lose valuable data from the :new planetary missions. The VIM does not require much tracking time as the data rate is reduced to 160BPS and is recorded for replay. The prime mission spacecraft have priority over any extended mission, not prime mission data will be lost because of the VIM. :A question for astronomers and planetary scientists on the net: does :the "Voyager Interstellar Mission" have enough scientific merit to sacrifice :data from Galileo and Magellan? : :If not, IMHO Voyager workers should be transferred to Galileo, Magellan or :wherever they want to go, and retrained as necessary. They are, see above. They are heroes :and deserve our best. We can let the Voyagers fly free, checking in :as schedules allow, content in the knowledge that they have completed our :greatest space mission ever. : :Nick Szabo Lee "I'm the NRA" |Lee F. Mellinger Caltech/Jet Propulsion Laboratory - NASA |4800 Oak Grove Drive, Pasadena, CA 91109 818/393-0516 FTS 977-0516 |{ames!cit-vax,}!elroy!jpl-devvax!leem leem@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest V10 #165 *******************