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 ; Wed, 10 Jan 90 01:35:26 -0500 (EST) Message-ID: <0ZehSHC00VcJM3QE5V@andrew.cmu.edu> Reply-To: space+@Andrew.CMU.EDU From: space-request+@Andrew.CMU.EDU To: space+@Andrew.CMU.EDU Date: Wed, 10 Jan 90 01:35:00 -0500 (EST) Subject: SPACE Digest V10 #405 SPACE Digest Volume 10 : Issue 405 Today's Topics: Re: Nuclear Reactors in Space NASA Headline News for 01/09/90 (Forwarded) Soviet Mir Crew update Re: Nuclear Reactors in Space Re: Nuclear Reactors in Space Re: Nuclear Reactors in Space Fwd: [postmaster: Returned mail: Host unknown] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 9 Jan 90 18:30:31 GMT From: crdgw1!crdos1!davidsen@uunet.uu.net (Wm E Davidsen Jr) Subject: Re: Nuclear Reactors in Space In article <1052@v7fs1.UUCP> mvp@v7fs1.UUCP (Mike Van Pelt) writes: | It's an unfortunate fact of life that there are a number of people out | there who react to any mention of the "N-word" with mindless, | unreasoning, superstitious dread, and no arguments, no matter how well | reasoned and firmly based in fact, will sway them in the slightest. And now you know why the Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) medical imaging project was a failure. People would rather have exploratory surgery than "something nuclear." They are now happy to submit to Magnetic Resonance Imaging instead. Same hardware, nothing changed but a few signs on the equipment and the department doors... -- 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: 9 Jan 90 19:16:35 GMT From: trident.arc.nasa.gov!yee@ames.arc.nasa.gov (Peter E. Yee) Subject: NASA Headline News for 01/09/90 (Forwarded) ----------------------------------------------------------------- Tuesday, January 9, 1990 Audio: 202/755-1788 ----------------------------------------------------------------- This is NASA Headline News for Tuesday, January 9..... The space shuttle Columbia was successfully launched today at 7:35 A.M., Eastern time. With good weather at the Kennedy Space Center this morning...the countdown went flawlessly and the STS-32 mission began on time as the launch window opened. KSC Launch Director Bob Sieck said the launch process was nearly flawless. Shortly after achieving orbit, the payload bay doors were opened and flight operations began. Activities today include checkout of the remote manipulator arm that will be used to grapple the Long Duration Exposure Facility later this week. Wednesday's major activity will be deployment of the SYNCOM satellite. The flight schedule calls for retrieval of the Long Duration Exposure Facility to occur Friday morning. The launch of a Delta rocket carrying a Global Positioning Satellite from Cape Canaveral has been delayed until next week. NASA Select TV will carry the launch. The New York Times says the world's most powerful optical telescope will become partially operational this spring. The 396-inch Keck telescope is located on Mauna Kea...a dormant 13,700 foot mountain in Hawaii...highest in the Pacific basin. Testing and operation of the telescope will occur following installation of nine mirror segments. Installation of all 36 segments will not be completed until next year. Even with nine segments, the telescope will have more power than the 200-inch Palomar telescope in California. And a final note....Roald Sagdeev, a leading Soviet space scientist and Susan Eisenhower, granddaughter of President Dwight Eisenhower say they will wed next month in Moscow. Sagdeev was a key figure in the cooperative Halley comet investigation and has participated in numerous U.S. and Soviet space science discussions. * * * ----------------------------------------------------------------- Here's the broadcast schedule for public affairs events on NASA Select TV. All times are Eastern. Extensive live coverage of the STS-32 mission continues on NASA Select TV. Here is a list of mission highlights scheduled as of January 9. Wednesday, January 10.... 5:25 A.M. Replay of flight day 1 activities. 7:05 A.M. Pre-deployment checkout of SYNCOM 10:55 A.M. Playback of SYNCOM deploy operations 1:00 P.M. NASA total quality management colloquium 10:25 P.M. Replay of flight day 2 activities Thursday, January 11... 6:25 A.M. Replay of flight day 2 activities 9:30 A.M. Playback of flight deck operations 9:25 P.M. Replay of flight day 3 activities Friday, January 12.... 4:25 A.M. Replay of flight day 3 activities 8:50 A.M. Live downlink of LDEF grapple operations 10:50 A.M. Live downlink of LDEF photo survey 10:25 P.M. Replay of flight day 4 activities 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: 9 Jan 90 23:50:32 GMT From: vlsi!glenn@XN.LL.MIT.EDU (Glenn Chapman) Subject: Soviet Mir Crew update On board the Mir space station on Dec. 25th Alexander Viktorenko and Alexander Serebrov activated the Protein crystal growth experiments for Payload Systems, which will continue for the 56 days. This commercial experiment was brought up on the Progress M-2 cargo capsule on Dec. 22. In the west Protein crystal growth experimental results have been announced from work done on the Sept. 1988 shuttle flight. Comparing growths done on the ground by the best equipment with that done in orbit showed in many cases the zero G samples were had less defects, and were larger. The importance of such crystal growth lies in the ability to determine the structure of unusual proteins, which are required by pharmaceutical companies to better produce the compounds. (New Scientist Dec 18, Science Dec., Radio Moscow Dec. 24, and Payload Systems press release) On New Year's Eve they had a day of celebration complete with a plastic fir tree, canned sturgeon, fruit sticks, black current juice, and fresh lemons (but not the traditional champagne: that is prohibited in orbit). Both crew and mission control, along with the crew's family, exchanged greeting at the stroke of midnight. On Jan. 6th the crew finished one set of extremely pure crystal growth experiments which took 150 hours to run. They also began preparations for their first space walk, which was announced for Jan. 8th. (Our mailer was down for this posting which was to go out on Friday, but a quick update: the space walk will begin at 20:24 Moscow Time, about 12:24 EST) This will probably test out the new airlock on the Kvant 2 module. Viktorenko and Serebrov have now been up there for 123 days. (Radio Moscow Dec. 25, Jan. 1-6, TASS press Jan 1) More details have been released about the next module addition to Mir. Called the Technology module (possibly Kvant 3) it will be launched in March or April of this year, for the use of the Soyuz TM-9 crew that will arrive in February. Massing 19.5 tonnes, its length is 12 meters (39 ft.) and adds 20 Kilowatts of power to Mir. If correct the stated power addition is the same as all of the present supplies of Mir, Kvant 2 and the space mounted tower erected in June '87 and would require almost twice the solar panel area of Mir's initial 76 sq. meters (817 sq. ft.). In addition the front end of the module contains a ball shaped multiple docking port similar to that on Mir itself. This will be used to dock their shuttle Buran to Mir in the early 1990's. The main experimental equipment on board will be large furnaces for semiconductor processing (almost pilot line production levels are planned), a KFA-1000 camera system for earth observations, a greenhouse and large 100 liter (3.5 cu. ft.). The high power capacity is required to run all the processing equipment. (AW&ST Jan 1) Extensive agreements for cooperation in space medicine and biology were arranged in December between the US and USSR. These cover the creation of compatible data bases for the manned medical information (Soviet long term data is being traded for US short term mission results). There has been a problem in comparing biological experimental results of the two programs for years, and the aim of this is to eliminate the difficulties. Bone density measurements have been one area of conflict and uniform methods will be created there. Also NASA will supply heart monitoring equipment to be used on an upcoming Mir mission. (AW&ST Jan 1) Sojuzkarta has a contract with the British firm Sigma to market earth observation pictures from the Soviet film return style satellites. The important selling point of these photos is their 5 meter (16 ft.) resolution, compared with the 10 meter capability of the French Spot, and 30 meter resolution of the current Landsat. (New Scientist Dec. 16) So the Russians have begun using Mir for commercial processing purposes. Now they must see if the Kvant 2 air lock is up to specs. Glenn Chapman MIT Lincoln Lab ------------------------------ Date: 9 Jan 90 23:47:00 GMT From: lectroid!jjmhome!cpoint!frog!john@CS.BU.EDU (John Woods) Subject: Re: Nuclear Reactors in Space In article <15073@bfmny0.UU.NET>, tneff@bfmny0.UU.NET (Tom Neff) writes: > Well, reactors don't care how far from the sun they are per se (as long > as you don't get too close!), but they do need fuel, and when that runs > out you have a lot of complicated hardware doing nothing. Solar arrays > diminish in effectiveness as distance from the sun increases, but while > they are effective at all they are just about *permanently* effective. But they don't have to go very far away to become *in*effective. As I recall, the solar flux at Earth is something like a kilowatt per square meter (I am certain this is wrong, but not by an order of magnitude). At the orbit of Jupiter, the flux will be 1/27th this (483M miles versus 93M miles, squared). If we had 50% effective solar cells, maybe Gallileo could indeed have gotten by with a 50 m2 solar cell array (anyone know Gallileo's power budget?). What is that going to weigh, and what does 2Kw of RTG weigh? Out at the orbit of Neptune, on the other hand, the solar flux is about 1/900 what it is at Earth. Pluto, 1/2446 (perihelion). Voyager is expected to keep doing something useful well past this point. And just how do you power the proposed TAU (Thousand Astronomical Unit) project? The engineers at NASA might be a bit slothful, but they aren't entirely dim, unlike the Sun at the majority of planets. -- John Woods, Charles River Data Systems, Framingham MA, (508) 626-1101 ...!decvax!frog!john, john@frog.UUCP, ...!mit-eddie!jfw, jfw@eddie.mit.edu Happiness is Planet Earth in your rear-view mirror. - Sam Hurt ------------------------------ Date: 9 Jan 90 18:22:21 GMT From: crdgw1!crdos1!davidsen@uunet.uu.net (Wm E Davidsen Jr) Subject: Re: Nuclear Reactors in Space In article <1990Jan8.151837.6831@utzoo.uucp> kcarroll@utzoo.uucp (Kieran A. Carroll) writes: | Now, have you any reason to believe that it is possible to produce | batteries with much higher specific energy capacity (i.e. energy | capacity divided by mass) than those currently available? Say, two | orders of magnitude better than NiCd batteries? I know that a >lot< | of money has been spent on battery research in the last decade (by | NASA, by spacecraft battery manufacturers, by the DOE, by electric- | car proponents; even some by the electric utility companies, who | would love to have cheaper load-leveling devices), and as far as I | have heard that research has not turned up any physical principles | that could be exploited to produce the sort of improvements that you | suggest. You have stated the case very well. There is simply no technology which promises to give the needed energy density, even if you could disregard recharge issues, which you can't. Back in the 60's and 70's GE was spending big bucks on the electric car research. We had all sorts of batteries and fuel cells here, spent years and millions on them. About the time of the energy crunch (1973 era) we thought the breakthrough was here, and that higher energy prices and pollution controls would mandate electric cars. You have noticed the lack of of such, I'm sure. If cost were no object there are several companies, including GE, which could build an electric car which would be practical on earth. I have seen nothing which would indicate that the same technology would remotely be useful in the places where we wre using RTGs. There is just not enough energy density. My hope is that in investigating cold fusion someone will get a handle on some new physics, either energy generation or energy storage, which will solve the problem. For now I don't see anything which could be made to work at any price. Please hold any discussion of cold fusion to that group. -- 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: 9 Jan 90 21:08:23 GMT From: eplrx7!leipold@louie.udel.edu (Walt Leipold) Subject: Re: Nuclear Reactors in Space In article <3624@ccncsu.ColoState.EDU> conca@handel.UUCP (michael vincen conca) writes: >Basically, you run a strong, insulated wire down from the shuttle towards >the planet so that as the Shuttle moves, the wire intersects the magnetic >field lines at right angles. At each end of the wire is a plasma contactor. >As the shuttle moves through the magnetic field, an electrical current is >generated... Yes, this steals kinetic energy (and hence altitude) from the spacecraft. Of course, when you finally have some excess power, you can pump it back through your tether to *raise* your orbit, right? -- "As long as you've lit one candle, Walt Leipold you're allowed to curse the darkness." (leipolw%esvax@dupont.com) -- -- The UUCP Mailer ------------------------------ Date: 9 Jan 90 21:55:57 GMT From: tm2b+@andrew.cmu.edu (Todd L. Masco) Subject: Fwd: [postmaster: Returned mail: Host unknown] From: Nancy Sliwa Message-Id: <9001022143.AA27526@ptolemy.arc.nasa.gov> Received: by yalow.arc.nasa.gov (4.1/) id ; Tue, 2 Jan 90 13:44:01 PST To: sci@space [should be space+@andrew.cmu.edu] Subject: AIAA GNC Conference - Space Robotics Sessions (Due to mailer problems this is a late posting) AIAA Guidance, Navigation, and Control Conference August 20-22, 1990 Portland, Oregon Papers are solicited for a special interest session on the use of robots for supervision and manipulation of experiments and manufacturing processes for moving and assembling structures of varying sizes and flexibilities in space. Topics of interest include the modelling of non-linear robot dynamics and kinematics including interactions with the space-based platform, control law formulation and simulation, and laboratory implementation and test of robots. Of particular interest are precision control of structurally flexible robots, and applications of AI techniques to the design of highly automated robot control systems. Also of particular interest are papers dealing with all aspects of robotics and AI applications to Space Station Freedom. Send draft papers in triplicate to: Nancy Sliwa MS 244-17 NASA Ames Research Center Moffett Field, CA 94035 415/694-4756 (after Jan 15th, 415/604-4756) A 100-200 work abstract is requested by Jan. 15th, 1990. Drafts of the full paper requested by Feb. 1, 1990. Notification of acceptance by March 26, 1990. Final manuscript and clearance approval to present and publish paper due by July 2, 1990 at AIAA Headquarters. Dratfs of proposed papers must be unclassified and not exceed a length of 36 standard-sized, double-spaced typed pages, including equations, figures, and tables. Each draft must begin with a 100-200 work abstract and an introduction -- a brief assessment of prior work by others and an explanation of the paper's main contributions. The names, complete mailing address, and telephone number of all authors must be submitted. Authors must state in their cover letter that they have received the appropriate company and/or sponsoring agency approval. ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest V10 #405 *******************