Message-ID: <4ZWS30q00VcJQ3dk5r@andrew.cmu.edu>
Reply-To: space+@Andrew.CMU.EDU
From: space-request+@Andrew.CMU.EDU
To: space+@Andrew.CMU.EDU
Date: Sat, 16 Dec 89 01:29:21 -0500 (EST)
Subject: SPACE Digest V10 #349

SPACE Digest                                     Volume 10 : Issue 349

Today's Topics:
			Re: New years eve 1999
			 Asteroid harvesting
			Re: New years eve 1999
			Re: New years eve 1999
			  Re: Japanese MIR?
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 16 Dec 89 02:39:40 GMT
From: zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!samsung!munnari.oz.au!dnk@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu  (David Kinny)
Subject: Re: New years eve 1999

Again the same stupid claims are being advanced that the end of the
century/millenium is at the end of the year 2000.  This is ludicrous !
There was no year zero, runs the usual justification.  So what ?
Some idiot made a mistake !  Mathematical sophistication wasn't
widespread at the time, with the result that the first
decade/century/millenium/whatever is short one year, an aberration.
The calendar is arbitrary anyway.  Only pedants, children, those with
a religious axe to grind, numerologists, and fortran programmers start
counting from 1.

Is it really desirable that the years 2000 and 2001 be part of
different centuries, or that the year 1990 be part of the eighties ?
This is about as sensible as suggesting that babies be one-year-olds
at birth, and turn two on their first birthdays !  The only sensible
solution is to consider a decade/century/millenium to include all years
that differ only in the last 1/2/3 digits.  I know when I'll be
celebrating the New Year's Eve party of the millenium.  Hands up all
those clods who are going to be a year late.

--
"The ideal .signature is a clever or humourous quote that fits neatly on one line"

------------------------------

Date:     Fri, 15 Dec 89 12:12 EST
From: <K_MACART%UNHH.BITNET@vma.cc.cmu.edu>
Subject:  Asteroid harvesting


      I also wonder how it will be done, if it ever gets to that point.  I'd
imagine it would be a matter of how much energy is there to use.  A solar
mirror could be used to melt sections of the surface while a ceramic armored
slag sucker could crawl around and collect the molten debris before it cools.
This is assuming that moving the whole thing is out of the question--not a
totally impossible feat.  The slag suckers could fill up a heated ceramic tank
with molten rock and metal and eject it when full, letting it settle to the
surface in collectible chunks or spit it out where a craft could grab it when
it radiated away enough heat to solidify (maybe eject only in the shadow region)

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 15 Dec 89 10:17:11 PST
From: Peter Scott <pjs@aristotle.Jpl.Nasa.Gov>
Subject: Re: New years eve 1999

rochester!dietz@rutgers.edu  (Paul Dietz) writes:

>In article <48@kiere.ericsson.se> tp_asr@kiere.ericsson.se writes:
>
>>   When (western civilisation) enters the next millenium why not celebrate
>>   with the BIGGEST fireworks ever. In the last hour of 1999 all MX:s,
>>   Minutemans and Tridents with their Soviet counterparts could be launched
>>   and converge at a point X at 23:59:59 GMT and then, you guessed it!
>
>What a remarkably idiotic idea.  Warheads exploded in space still
>put fallout into the atmosphere, and ICBMs don't loft their warheads very
>far up.

And in any case he is a year too early for the beginning of the next millenium.

Peter Scott (pjs@grouch.jpl.nasa.gov)

------------------------------

Date: 15 Dec 89 09:27:59 GMT
From: netnews.upenn.edu!cps3xx!usenet@rutgers.edu  (Usenet file owner)
Subject: Re: New years eve 1999

The decade from 1 AD to 9 AD was defective, as it was only 9 years long.

It also wasn't the first decade, we can measure time back to the big
bang.  Philosophers can debate the importance and/or existence of
time before the big bang.
------
Paul Haas, haas@frith.egr.msu.edu
Take the speed of sound in a perfect vacuum, divide by the weight of the
shuttle in orbit ...

------------------------------

Date: 15 Dec 89 13:36:17 GMT
From: spdcc!xylogics!barnes@husc6.harvard.edu  (Jim Barnes)
Subject: Re: Japanese MIR?

In article <31536@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu> cdaf@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu (Charles Daffinger) writes:
>
>o Date: 13 Dec 89 16:08:45 GMT
>o 
>o 	TOKYO -- A Japanese firm has bought Moscow's only surplus Mir space
>o station and an experimental science module for $10 million to help
>o promote Japan's space industry, the company's president said Wednesday.
>
>Say what?  I figure the price may be off by a few orders of magnitude,
>but what's this really supposed to mean?

Does anyone else see a parallel here with what the Japanese have done
in the electronics and computer industry?  Namely, buy the best technology
available and improve it? 

Which brings me to another point.  If the Russians are willing to build
and sell MIR stations for a reasonable price, what's to prevent (for example)
Hughes and Martin-Marietta from buying one and putting it up with their
own boosters.  Or even paying the Russians to launch the station and
then staffing with their own (Hughes and Martin-Marietta, that is) personnel?

Inquiring minds want to know.

----
  Jim Barnes (barnes@Xylogics.COM)

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End of SPACE Digest V10 #349
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