Message-ID: <Ia-g1NC00VcJM8s05w@andrew.cmu.edu>
Reply-To: space+@Andrew.CMU.EDU
From: space-request+@Andrew.CMU.EDU
To: space+@Andrew.CMU.EDU
Date: Tue, 17 Apr 90 03:06:01 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: SPACE Digest V11 #275

SPACE Digest                                     Volume 11 : Issue 275

Today's Topics:
				Reach
		 Re: Is the moon upsidedown to NASA?
			Re: Energy consumption
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 17 Apr 90 04:17:14 GMT
From: portal!cup.portal.com!phorgan@apple.com  (Patrick John Horgan)
Subject: Reach

Has anyone else read Reach?  It's a sci-fi book by Edward Gibson of
skylab fame.  It's really interesting reading a book on space travel
written by an astronaut.  I'm about half-way through, and so far
rate him a farely good writer.  Occasionally he gets a little to
bogged down in detail and the story drags, but not for long.
It's given me a great insight into the mind and motive of an astro-
naut.

Patrick Horgan                         phorgan@cup.portal.com

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

Date: 16 Apr 90 18:49:19 GMT
From: zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!rpi!uupsi!sunic!ericom!hasse.ericsson.se!howard@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu  (Howard Gayle)
Subject: Re: Is the moon upsidedown to NASA?

In article <6625@wehi.dn.mu.oz>, BAXTER_A@wehi writes:
>In Australia, the full moon looks to have an image of a rabbit with
>big ears on the left, with some buckshot passing by its left (right to us)
>ear.
>
>In the northern hemisphere, is this upside down?

.nwod edispu s'ti ailartsuA ni ;pu edis thgir si erehpsimeh
nrehtron eht morf deweiv nehw nooM eht taht swonk enoyrevE
--
9348 917 8 64+ :  XAF
5655 917 8 64+ :enohP
drawoh!es.nosscire!tenuu
es.nosscire@drawoh
nedewS
mlohkcotS 52 621-S
BA moceleT nosscirE
LH/TT/XTE/NT
elyaG drawoH

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

Date: 17 Apr 90 05:04:48 GMT
From: munnari.oz.au!gwydir!gara!pmorriso@uunet.uu.net  (Perry Morrison MATH)
Subject: Re: Energy consumption

In article <1990Apr15.192745.6815@cs.rochester.edu>, dietz@cs.rochester.edu (Paul Dietz) writes:
> Energy costs are *not* the major cost of spaceflight today.  The fuel
> in a shuttle is relatively inexpensive.  The major cost is the labor
> needed to get the vehicle ready for a launch, the cost of discarded
> components, and amortization of the orbiter.  There is no reason in
> principle that these cannot be reduced in the future, with better
> and simpler designs, more robust engines, automated checkout, and
> so on.  (This is not to say space tourism is just around the corner;
> development money is scarce.)

These postings have been concerned with the desirability or otherwise
of space tourism. Given the energy requirements of the average
third worlder (if there is such a thing) all of this is still a terrible
waste of resources- especially to fulfil what  is effectively an individual's
whim.

 Show me a space vehicle that gets simpler and I'll show you a unicorn.
The shuttle shows us how complex these things really are becoming and
how chronically unreliable they are.
 
> As for "exotic alloys": "exotic" is relative to our technical
> abilities.  Aluminum was once an exotic, expensive material.  Today,
> it's mundane.  The same thing is happening today to composites,
> ceramics and other materials.

Oh. So newer space vehicles won't use any new "exotic" alloys? They'll
stick with the tried and true?

  
> A 70 kilogram person going at escape
> velocity has < 2000 kWh of kinetic energy.  At today's electricity
> costs, that's somewhere around $100-200.  Of course, rockets are
> not very efficient, but then the chemical energy in fuels like
> methane is cheaper than electricity.


Excuse me, but I always that a person went with a rocket and that these
things weighed more than 70kgs.

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End of SPACE Digest V11 #275
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