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 ; Tue, 14 Nov 89 01:31:36 -0500 (EST) Message-ID: Reply-To: space+@Andrew.CMU.EDU From: space-request+@Andrew.CMU.EDU To: space+@Andrew.CMU.EDU Date: Tue, 14 Nov 89 01:31:12 -0500 (EST) Subject: SPACE Digest V10 #242 SPACE Digest Volume 10 : Issue 242 Today's Topics: China's space program - December ANALOG SF. Re: Moon Colonies / Ant Tanks? Re: Future Space Missions Payload Status for 11/13/89 (Forwarded) Micro-gravity fermentation experiments HST Resolving power Technology and space colonization Re: Population pressure to move to space Re: Atomic weapon/power demographics NASA Headline News for 11/13/89 (Forwarded) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 13 Nov 89 16:33:56 GMT From: wrksys.dec.com!klaes@decwrl.dec.com (CUP/ASG, MLO5-2/G1 6A, 223-3283 13-Nov-1989 1133) Subject: China's space program - December ANALOG SF. The December 1989 issue of ANALOG SF magazine has a very informative article on China's space program to date, including their plans for manned space missions. Larry Klaes klaes@wrksys.dec.com or - ...!decwrl!wrksys.dec.com!klaes or - klaes%wrksys.dec@decwrl.dec.com or - klaes@wrksys.enet.dec.com N = R*fgfpneflfifaL ------------------------------ Date: 13 Nov 89 15:19:50 GMT From: bfmny0!tneff@uunet.uu.net (Tom Neff) Subject: Re: Moon Colonies / Ant Tanks? In article <5090@mentor.cc.purdue.edu> f3w@mentor.cc.purdue.edu (Mark Gellis) writes: >I've been reading the discussion of space colonies with some interest >since I, like some of you, write sf (in my spare time). Of course, I >tend to like stories set in the relatively far future, and my vision of >space colonies is much more optimistic than what I've heard from a lot >of people. Oh, if we're discussing science fiction, we can loose lots of restraints here. Jeez, why didn't somebody say so earlier! Life in the basement is so much more INTERESTING when you get to talk to psychic Rigelian slugs and such. Let's face it, if you write an SF story where space colonization just basically doesn't work because of economic or psychological facts of life, your efforts will be considered too pessimistic and editors won't buy it. Those kind of doubts went out in the 60's; by now the field has basically "bought into the dream" and if you don't want to play, you just don't write about space in your stories. Therefore what SF writers *want* space colonization to be like is irrelevant. They want it to be like what sells. > ... >Enjoy. Consume! :-) -- "Nature loves a vacuum. Digital \O@/ Tom Neff doesn't." -- DEC sales letter /@O\ tneff@bfmny0.UU.NET ------------------------------ Date: 13 Nov 89 19:47:10 GMT From: bfmny0!tneff@uunet.uu.net (Tom Neff) Subject: Re: Future Space Missions In article <20862@ut-emx.UUCP> anita@ut-emx.UUCP (Anita Cochran) writes: >Galileo would have been fine with a shuttle launch as originally planned. >However, when the Challenger blew, it was decided that the IUS was >potentially too dangerous. Thus, they went to the Centaur. Just the reverse -- Centaur yielded to the less powerful IUS. (Let's see if we can go for a repetitive-followups record on this one...) -- I'm a Leo. Leos don't believe * * * Tom Neff in this astrology stuff. * * * tneff@bfmny0.UU.NET ------------------------------ Date: 13 Nov 89 22:37:08 GMT From: trident.arc.nasa.gov!yee@ames.arc.nasa.gov (Peter E. Yee) Subject: Payload Status for 11/13/89 (Forwarded) Daily Status/KSC Payload Management and Operations 11-13-89 - STS-31R HST (at VPF) - The HST functional test shut down at 2225 hours Friday and remained down over the weekend as planned. There have been no significant problems. HST will remain powered down until SYNCOM arrival and hazardous operations are complete. Personnel are supporting the continuous VPF environmental and ECS unit monitoring. -STS-32R SYNCOM (at VPF) - GSE arrived at the VPF at 0330 hours this morning and is being positioned in room 104. The SYNCOM spacecraft arrived at the facility at 0600 hours and receiving operations are active. The spacecraft transporter length is delaying entry into the highbay, with completion scheduled by 0800 hours. - STS-35 ASTRO-1/BBXRT (at O&C) - IPS power on retest is scheduled to pick up this morning, and by 1700/1730 hours will terminate until the next morning. The resolver/cable checks were completed with no problem. - STS-40 SLS-1 (at O&C) - Water servicing GSE prep and validation is active as is pyrell foam replacement preps. Rack structural mod activities continue. Rack back panel installation and rack 5 and rack 9 rotation was completed. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 13 Nov 89 09:47:50 GMT From: ZZASSGL%cms.manchester-computing-centre.ac.uk@NSFnet-Relay.AC.UK Myname: Geoff. Lane. (Phone UK-061 275 6051) Subject: Micro-gravity fermentation experiments If people are going to live comfortably in Earth orbit, L5 or some other low gravity environment they must have suitable facilities, for instance, a good pub within easy floating distance. Obviously shipping casks of beer up from the surface of the Earth would be much to expensive and would probably ruin the beer. Thus one of the most important, yet neglected, aspects of space research is how to brew a good beer in space. After all Coke and Pepsi got their cans into space as a "scientific" experiment! ------------------------------ Date: 13 Nov 89 19:08:35 GMT From: psuvm!mrw104@psuvax1.cs.psu.edu Subject: HST Resolving power Wow! That's certainly something to think about. I have read of ground-based telescopes resolving star-spots using speckle interferometry, but I never heard a word about resolving CONTINENTS! If I remember my astronomy correctly, the resolving power of a telescope is something like lambda a = k -------- diameter where a is the minimal angle of resolution, lambda is the wavelength of light and diameter is the diameter of the telescope. k is a constant that I can't remember off hand, but I think it's something like 1.22. For a sample problem, let's use k = 1.22, diameter =0.88 meters (I think that's the HST diameter), and to find a, let's assume that we're looking at a North America size continent on a planet in orbit around Alpha Centuri. a is something like 3000 miles a = --------------- 4.3 light years converting to consistant metric units, a is something like 1.179e-10 radians. Solving for lambda in the above equation, we get lambda = 8.505e-11 m which is a very hard gamma ray, assuming that the planet in question radiates at this wavelength (which corresponds to a surface temperature of several million degrees) and the HST can see into the gamma end of the spectrum (I think it can, but not with the main mirror). Going the other way, if we use lambda= 600 nm (6.0e-7 m) diameter =0.88 we get a resolving power of a=8.318e-7 radians, which corresponds to resolving North America at a distance of 5.3 light hours in visable light. Pretty impressive, but not an interstellar distance. I'm not sure if the above equations are right (I'm quoting from rusty memory) but the analysis is correct. Check out any astronomy or optics text to find the minimum resolvable angle as a function of the wavelength. **************************************************************************** Mike Williams mrw104@psuvm.bitnet ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 13 Nov 89 20:56:34 EST From: John Roberts Disclaimer: Opinions expressed are those of the sender and do not reflect NIST policy or agreement. Subject: Technology and space colonization >From: uceng!dmocsny@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu (daniel mocsny) >Subject: Re: Moon Colonies / Ant Tanks? >Leaving Europe was not a picnic, but for many people it was not a >picnic to stay either. In any case, the basic technologies that worked >in Europe (agriculture, herding, hunting, etc.) all worked just as >well in North America, when the *necessary* *infrastructure* was in >place. That is what I meant when I referred to "fundamental >environmental obstacles." Nothing about North America made it a >fundamentally harder place to survive than Europe. Going to the Moon, >however, will require fundamental re-thinking of every major industry. While all of this is true, there is something inherently misleading in such historical comparisons. It is similar in kind, if not degree, to arguing that bubonic plague in the Middle Ages was much less of a threat to humanity than AIDS in the 1980s, because bubonic plague is easily treated with antibiotics, while there is no known cure for AIDS. (For those who didn't "get" it, antibiotics were not available in the Middle Ages.) It is true that migration from Europe to North America did not require any major advances in technology. However, our current level of technology *is* rapidly increasing, and it is not rediculous to assume that it will soon reach a level that will make extraterrestrial colonies practical from a technical viewpoint. Economic attractiveness is a separate matter. I suspect that limited colonization can be supported for research purposes (studies on colonization itself, as well as human-supported space science and possible economic exploitation of space resources). In the long term, there may be straightforward financial incentives. To change the subject slightly, I believe an otherwise horrible (my opinion) Heinlein novel described an interesting way of financing a lunar colony. A lunar colony had been established, and anyone who was sufficiently wealthy could join the colony, but first had to surrender all his earth-based assets to the lunar organization. These assets were managed by a corporation. The colony was therefore essentially a private club, and was financed largely by its financial activity on Earth. I suspect there are a fair number of people on the net who would be interested in joining such an organization. John Roberts roberts@cmr.ncsl.nist.gov ------------------------------ Date: 14 Nov 89 03:13:46 GMT From: rochester!dietz@louie.udel.edu (Paul Dietz) Subject: Re: Population pressure to move to space In article <2502@umbc3.UMBC.EDU> cs225202@umbc5.umbc.edu.UUCP (Sang J. Moon) writes: >It occurs to me that if the threat of major war is removed from earth via >peace between USA and USSR, the population explosion resulting from lack of >massive death will necessitate developing ways to put the surplus population >into space or else we will have to have another war. Overpopulation is a myth. Current demographic projections have world population growth stopping at about 10 billion people around 2100. The relative growth rate peaked in the 1960's. No space colonization or nuclear war necessary, just economic development. Birth rates drop with increasing affluence; the material resources needed to move billions of people into space would be enormous, so the people moving would be affluent. Paul F. Dietz dietz@cs.rochester.edu ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 13 Nov 89 18:41:19 PST From: Peter Scott Subject: Re: Atomic weapon/power demographics X-Vms-Mail-To: EXOS%"space@andrew.cmu.edu" jon@june.cs.washington.edu (Jon Jacky) writes: >> Peter Scott (pjs@grouch.jpl.nasa.gov) writes: ...the number of lives saved >> by the invention of atomic power must be much greater than the number of >> lives taken by atomic weapons (and then he cites many beneficial things >> like radioisotopic medical scans, radiation therapy, etc...) > >I work in radiation therapy, so I couldn't resist responding to this one. > >There are many beneficial medical (and other) applications of ionizing >radiation, but these have almost nothing to do with, and owe almost nothing >to, the research conducted to produce atomic weapons. Peter's use of the term >"atomic" is much too loose. I kept it deliberately loose because the people I'm talking about think about it that way. May as well use their own misconceptions against them. You only have to watch a little television or pick up a newspaper to realize that Joe Public doesn't make a distinction between a nuclear reactor and a nuclear bomb, they both use that radiation thingummy, don't they? Granted, it wouldn't be a wholly rational debating tactic, but as Henry Spencer pointed out, the other side isn't wholly rational either... and in any case, the figures would be of academic interest by themselves. Peter Scott (pjs@grouch.jpl.nasa.gov) ------------------------------ Date: 13 Nov 89 21:15:11 GMT From: trident.arc.nasa.gov!yee@ames.arc.nasa.gov (Peter E. Yee) Subject: NASA Headline News for 11/13/89 (Forwarded) ----------------------------------------------------------------- Monday, November 13, 1989 Audio: 202/755-1788 ----------------------------------------------------------------- This is NASA Headline News for Monday, November 13.... The launch of the Cosmic Background Explorer satellite has been delayed to no earlier than Sunday, November 19. A problem was detected in the Delta rocket guidance computer requiring it to be replaced. A news briefing on the flight of the COBE will be held tomorrow at 2:00 P.M., Eastern time, from JPL. It can be seen on NASA Select TV. NASA, DoD and Orbital Sciences Corporation engineers are pleased with the results of the captive flight of the NASA B-52 and the Pegasus air-launch orbital booster last Thursday at Edwards Air Force Base. Only a few minor problems developed. The flight test was the first of two prior to launch. No dates have been set for the second captive flight and the launch. Goddard Space Flight Center and DARPA supplied engineering test payloads for the captive flight over the Mojave desert. The actual launch will take place over the Pacific Ocean off the California coast. The Starfire/Consort 2 commercial suborbital launch vehicle is ready for launch Wednesday from White Sands Missile Range, New Mexico. Liftoff is schedule for 10:45 A.M., Eastern time. The payload section will carry a dozen experiments. The launch will be carried on NASA Select TV. The Solar Max satellite could plunge back into the Earth's atmosphere as early as the end of this month. Most of the three-ton spacecraft will be vaporized in the upper atmosphere, but some larger pieces could survive and impact the Earth...most likely in one of the world's oceans. An exact re-entry time can not be determined at this time. Solar max was launched in 1980 and repaired in orbit by astronauts in 1984. Meanwhile, retrieval of the Long Duration Exposure Facility will be the major topic of discussion at the STS-32 crew news conference, Tuesday, at Johnson Space Center at 10:00 A.M., Eastern time. The STS-32 flight is scheduled for liftoff from Kennedy Space Center shortly before Christmas. And next week...the STS-33 mission is scheduled for a nighttime launch on November 20 from Kennedy Space Center. The Department of Defense mission is classified. * * * * ----------------------------------------------------------------- Here's the broadcast schedule for public affairs events on NASA Select TV. All times are Eastern. Tuesday, November 14........ 10:00 A.M. STS-32 crew pre-flight news conference from Johnson Space Center. 2:00 P.M. Media briefing on the Cosmic Background Explorer satellite launch. Wednesday, November 15..... 9:45 A.M. Coverage of Consort-2 launch from White Sands Missile Range. Thursday, November 16...... 11:30 A.M. NASA Update will be transmitted. Sunday, November 19..... 8:30 A.M. Coverage of the launch of the Cosmic Background Explorer satellite from Vandenberg Air Force Base. 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. ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest V10 #242 *******************