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 23:44:01 -0500 (EST) Message-ID: <0ZGx5ui00VcJQG605j@andrew.cmu.edu> Reply-To: space+@Andrew.CMU.EDU From: space-request+@Andrew.CMU.EDU To: space+@Andrew.CMU.EDU Date: Sun, 29 Oct 89 23:43:39 -0500 (EST) Subject: SPACE Digest V10 #171 SPACE Digest Volume 10 : Issue 171 Today's Topics: "Terraforming", so-called... Re: The true value of Galileo Re: finally! NASA Headline News for 10/20/89 (Forwarded) The Anti-RTG Movement Galileo Status for 10/21/89 (Forwarded) More Aurora news Re: Reason with the Anti-RTG Movement? Galileo Status for 10/21/89 Afternoon (Forwarded) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 20 Oct 89 16:14:00 GMT From: apollo!rehrauer@beaver.cs.washington.edu (Steve Rehrauer) Subject: "Terraforming", so-called... (Is anyone else getting tired of the RTGs-From-Hell debate?) All the bickering over whether it is ethical to possibly "contaminate" Jupiter with terrestrial life from the Galileo probe set me to wondering about "terraforming". A few questions: - Assume that it is technically & fiscally feasible to terraform a world, via means unspecified. Would the people who objected to "contaminating" Jupiter also think it ethically naughty to terraform a world which is considered dead? Say, Venus? The Moon? What if Mars were found to have once supported life, but now to be incontrovertibly barren? Should we slap on a big "Planetary Museum" sign and leave it as-is? - Science-fiction offers terraform methods that range from the plausible (to me at least) to bizarre: seeding with gene-tailored life (usually targetted at Venus); targetting comets for impact (usually for Mars); orbiting devices to alter the amount of incoming light; moving the world closer to / farther from the sun (the bizarre :); etc, etc. Is anyone blue-skying the feasibility of this sort of thing in a serious way? - We seem to be on the verge of being able to tailor life as suits us. Is it at all plausible to suppose that we could seed the clouds of Venus, say, and expect to alter conditions there such that your garden-variety homo sapiens could live there without armor & suit & techno-supports? Would this likely take decades? Centuries? Millenia? Do we know enough about the cloud-top environment of Venus to even guess yet? Can we simulate such conditions here, and roughly what would it cost to build and operate a "Venus tank" if so? - It would seem to me, and I admit my naivete in this area, that such a goal (the "creation" of another habitable world, presumably a modified Venus or Mars) is the sort of thing that would create intense excitement in people throughout the world. So call it a goal for the 23rd century, and acknowledge the long, long road ahead. Better than blundering about from one pseudo-goal (first men on the Moon) to the next (first men on Mars). -- >>"Aaiiyeeee! Death from above!"<< | Steve Rehrauer, rehrauer@apollo.hp.com "Flee, lest we be trod upon!" | The Apollo Computer Division of H.P. ------------------------------ Date: 20 Oct 89 15:24:00 GMT From: apollo!rehrauer@beaver.cs.washington.edu (Steve Rehrauer) Subject: Re: The true value of Galileo In article <8910080744.AA02883@trout.nosc.mil> jim@pnet01.cts.COM (Jim Bowery) writes: >I hope the suit to block launch of Galileo fails. We need >to see another Shuttle blow up a bunch of astronauts, >the lives work of many competent and idealistic scientists and >possibly, 50lbs of Plutonium. Such an event would finally >wake us from our opiated stupor induced by eating the rotting >carrion of Apollo that NASA has been spoon-feeding us for >TWENTY YEARS. > >Such an awakening is our only real hope of getting to space. >The cost of such a disaster would be small compared to the >value of breakout out into the space frontier before the >Club of Rome comes home to roost. Oh, sure! By logical extension, my employer should ship crap software that we know will crash & burn -- our customers' clamors for better software would force us to do better than we are now. Right. Check out the polls of John Q. (especially _young_ John Q.) Public immediately after the Challenger: MEDIA-MAVEN: "So, young person, would YOU like to be an astronaut when you grow up?" YOUNG PERSON: "Me? Nuh-uh! No way! I doan wanna blow up an' die!" It doesn't help. The next accident may be inevitable, but I don't think it'll help anyone but the Media Carrion Birds (TM). -- >>"Aaiiyeeee! Death from above!"<< | Steve Rehrauer, rehrauer@apollo.hp.com "Flee, lest we be trod upon!" | The Apollo Computer Division of H.P. ------------------------------ Date: 21 Oct 89 06:56:45 GMT From: mailrus!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!utgpu!utzoo!henry@ames.arc.nasa.gov (Henry Spencer) Subject: Re: finally! In article <1437@syma.sussex.ac.uk> andy@syma.sussex.ac.uk (Andy Clews) writes: >Thanks for the information, Henry, but, uh, haven't you slipped into the >"I must be the first person in the world to announce this" trap? ... It was meant to have a local distribution restriction in it, but I goofed. Sorry about that. -- 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: 20 Oct 89 21:03:58 GMT From: trident.arc.nasa.gov!yee@ames.arc.nasa.gov (Peter E. Yee) Subject: NASA Headline News for 10/20/89 (Forwarded) ----------------------------------------------------------------- Friday, October 20, 1989 Audio: 202/755-1788 ----------------------------------------------------------------- This is NASA Headline News for Friday, October 20... The crew of Atlantis reports today that the STS-34 mission is going well. A problem in the spacecraft cooling system was resolved Thursday and mission operations are pretty much on schedule. Early today lightning observations continued and yesterday the crew took still pictures and Imax film of super-typhoon Elsie in the Sea of Japan. some concern was expressed by Commander Don Williams last night when ice crystals didn't form in the student experiment. The crew will attempt to conduct the experiment today. The astronauts are also obtaining data on parts of the earth's ozone layer. Meanwhile, a major solar flare occured yesterday. Although it is expected to disrupt worldwide communications and electrical power over the next two days, there is no danger to the Atlantis crew. and engineers at JPL report that the Galileo spacecraft was built to resist solar radiation much stronger than that expected from the solar flare. NASA's high altitude ER-2 research aircraft is taking aerial photographs of the area affected by Tuesday's San Francisco-area earthquake. Cameras are looking for large scale natural damage such as landslides or unusual water flow. The aircraft cameras may also be able to detect changes in fault line features. At the Ames Research Center, clean up activities continue as a result of the earthquake. The NASA facility is only about 25 miles from the quake's epicenter. Non-essential employees didn't report for work Thursday as laboratories were checked for chemical spills. None were found. At the time of the earthquake, doors between two large wind tunnels were being moved and actuators were disabled. technicians were also restoring electrical power yesterday to computer areas. And the Soviet news agency Tass says there will be a delay in the launch of a module for the Mir spage station from Monday to late November. There are problems with the docking and guidance system. * * * * ----------------------------------------------------------------- Here's the broadcast schedule for public affairs events on NASA Select television. All times are Eastern. NASA Select television is providing near continuous coverage of the STS-34 mission. Landing is scheduled for 3:38 P.M., Eastern time, Monday, at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif. NASA Select television will provide coverage of the launch of a Delta rocket with a DoD GPS payload early Saturday. Launch window is from 5:26 to 5:47 P.M. 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: 20 Oct 89 22:50:58 GMT From: amid!lip@mordor.s1.gov (Loren I. Petrich) Subject: The Anti-RTG Movement I wonder what the leaders of the anti-RTG movement (as I call it) are saying now? Have they conceded defeat? Do they have any plans to stop other RTG-equipped satellites? And is it really true that the facility that makes RTG's in this country has stopped making them? If so, that means no more missions to the outer solar system for a long time (except if one uses Russian, let us say, RTG's). ^ Loren Petrich, the Master Blaster \ ^ / loren@moonzappa.llnl.gov \ ^ / One may need to route through any of: \^/ sunlight.llnl.gov <<<<<<<<+>>>>>>>> lll-lcc.llnl.gov /v\ lll-crg.llnl.gov / v \ star.stanford.edu / v \ v "What do you MEAN it's not in the computer?!?" -- Madonna ------------------------------ Date: 21 Oct 89 19:15:49 GMT From: trident.arc.nasa.gov!yee@ames.arc.nasa.gov (Peter E. Yee) Subject: Galileo Status for 10/21/89 (Forwarded) Galileo Status Report 10/21 Spacecraft is doing wonderful. No adverse reaction from the solar flares which have been observed by JPL team. Current spacecraft operations include deployment of science instrument covers (energetic particle detector). A planned sun acquisition isn't needed because the spacecraft has sun lock. The heavy ion instrument took data of the flare but no analysis as of now. The only out of ordinary item is a slight loss of data synchronization (less than one percent) in the wide band data stream coming from the Madrid Deep Space Network to JPL. There is a nearly 100 percent throughput in overall in the data signal coming from the Galileo spacecraft through the Deep Space Network to the JPL control center. Source: M.B. Murrill JPL Project Office ------------------------------ Date: 20 Oct 89 17:53:40 GMT From: palmer@tybalt.caltech.edu (David Palmer) Subject: More Aurora news More news on the Humungous proton storm, this just in (10/20/89, 1050 PDT) The astronauts have reported seeing aurora, and they are at an altitude of only a few hundred miles and in a low (~23 degree?) inclination orbit. Watch tonight. David Palmer palmer@tybalt.caltech.edu ...rutgers!cit-vax!tybalt.caltech.edu!palmer Meanwhile, on eng.string.floss, the waxed vs. unwaxed flamewar continues unabated. ------------------------------ Date: 22 Oct 89 15:05:26 GMT From: EWTILENI@pucc.princeton.edu (Eric William Tilenius) Subject: Re: Reason with the Anti-RTG Movement? In article <14155@jumbo.dec.com>, ayers@jumbo.dec.com (Bob Ayers) writes: >Anyone got any evidence to suggest that the Christics (and other >anti-RTGers) can be swayed by logic? Rifkin's group, The Coalition on Economic Trends (or some such drivel), is blatently anti-science. And that's that. Technology, science, and most of what we call "progress" is exactly what Rifkin & Co. would banish from the face of the Earth. We shouldn't be messing around with science is Rifkin's essential message. Rifkin saw Galileo and the RTGs as a good publicity stunt - a good way to capitilize on people's fears. But it is important to realize that it is part of a bigger plan to destroy, halt, or hinder science and technology. True, Tom Neff has a good point that NASA should do more to counter the anti-RTG propaganda and that NASA should do more to reach out to Congressmen and get them excited about space, but reasoning with Rifkin's group is not likely to be productive because of their stated aims. We need to reach out to the general population at large and sway them. Arguing directly with one's opponent is most often a futile tactic. - ERIC - Eric W. Tilenius | Princeton Planetary Soc. | ewtileni@pucc.BITNET 523 Laughlin Hall | 315 West College | ewtileni@pucc.Princeton.EDU Princeton University | Princeton University | rutgers!pucc.bitnet!ewtileni Princeton, NJ 08544 | Princeton, NJ 08544 | princeton!pucc!ewtileni 609-734-7677 | 609-734-7677 | COMPUSERVE: 70346,16 ------------------------------ Date: 21 Oct 89 20:31:07 GMT From: trident.arc.nasa.gov!yee@ames.arc.nasa.gov (Peter E. Yee) Subject: Galileo Status for 10/21/89 Afternoon (Forwarded) Galileo Status Report 10/21/89 1:46 pm CDT Flight controllers at JPL say the Galileo spacecraft is experiencing no known problems related to the solar flare and that one of the spacecraft science instruments, the heavy ion counter, is making measurements of high energy particles associated with the flare. Galileo scientists "are quite ecstatic with the data they are seeing and with the opportunity to observe the solar flare," said Dr. Neal Ausmann, science manager for the project. Ausmann said there has been no detectable damage to Galileo's electronics. He said one telemetry channel in the Attitude and Articulation Control Subsystem has been primed with special software to track any loss or disruptions of the memory due to radiation from the solar flare. Earlier today, the valves of the retropropulsion module opened and closed as expected in prepartion for a planned sun acquiusition maneuver. The maneuver, however, was cancelled because the spacecraft was already on target. Other spacecraft activity today includes the removal of the protective cover on the electrical particle detector. "So far," said Ausmann, "everything we've tried to do with the spacecraft has worked like we expected. Everything is going magnificiently." Source: M.B. Murrill Dr. N. Ausmann ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest V10 #171 *******************