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, 9 May 90 01:30:35 -0400 (EDT) Message-ID: Reply-To: space+@Andrew.CMU.EDU From: space-request+@Andrew.CMU.EDU To: space+@Andrew.CMU.EDU Date: Wed, 9 May 90 01:29:23 -0400 (EDT) Subject: SPACE Digest V11 #374 SPACE Digest Volume 11 : Issue 374 Today's Topics: Re: Fermi Paradox Astro-1 Payload Re: B-70 Featured On Wings GEMINI 6-8 Re: Astro-1 Payload Re: Manned mission to Venus CD-ROMs trivia question Re: Apollo 12 Re: Recovering old spacecraft (was Re: (How to get rid of) space garbage) Magazine advice/recommendation ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 7 May 90 16:13:43 GMT From: usc!cs.utexas.edu!varvel@ucsd.edu (Donald A. Varvel) Subject: Re: Fermi Paradox In article <900505.01375390.003544@CMR.CP6> Dennis_Grant@CMR001.BITNET writes: > One of the big variables in determining if life is possible in a given >star system is there must be a planet of sufficiant mass + makeup in the >"life zone" of the star. Trying to estimate the number of potential life- >supporting planets is difficult because we don't now for sure if other >stars even have planets - we only know about one system for sure. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ As sources for data about frequencies of various sizes of objects in systems that condense from dust clouds, we also have the systems of the outer planets. While solar wind and possibly other factors such as perturbation by neighbors disrupt satellite systems in the inner solar system, the outer planets are less affected. Jupitor is the second-best model of a planetary system we have available. Both Galileo and the Inquisition recognized that. It isn't a perfect model. In particular, most of the moons of outer planets have insufficient gravity to retain an atmosphere. Still, it appears that the only place in the solar system where two relatively equal-sized objects condensed together is the earth-moon system. And it appears that most objects have smaller satellite objects. We might even draw some conclusions about sizes and orbits. -- Don Varvel (varvel@cs.utexas.edu) ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 07 May 1990 12:55 EDT From: SIMMONS DONALD F <27000%AECLCR.BITNET@vma.cc.cmu.edu> Subject: Astro-1 Payload To: Ignorant question of the day - What exactly is this Astro-1 payload scheduled to go up on the shuttle next week, and what will it do? I have seen it meantioned a hundred times in those NASA bulletins, but never an description of it. Anyone know? Donald Simmons 27000@AECLCR ------------------------------ Date: 7 May 90 19:03:28 GMT From: cruff@handies.ucar.edu (Craig Ruff) Subject: Re: B-70 Featured On Wings In article <386@newave.UUCP> john@newave.mn.org (John A. Weeks III) writes: >With all of the talk about the B-70, I thought I would pass on the >following tidbit: "Wings" is showing the XB-70 show ... The local listing in my area says it will also be on at midnight MDT Thursday/Friday May 10/11, that is 2 AM Friday May 11 EDT. -- Craig Ruff NCAR cruff@ncar.ucar.edu (303) 497-1211 P.O. Box 3000 Boulder, CO 80307 ------------------------------ Date: 7 May 90 18:07:31 GMT From: shlump.nac.dec.com!renoir.dec.com!klaes@decuac.dec.com Subject: GEMINI 6-8 Mark.Perew@ofa123.FIDONET.ORG (Mark Perew) writes: >> Gemini 6 and 7 (or was it 7 and 8?) launched within a few >> hours of each other and later did a rendezvous in space. GEMINI 6 was originally planned to dock with an unmanned AGENA docking target, until the AGENA booster exploded in mid-flight on October 25, 1965. NASA then decided to have GEMINI 6 rendezvous in Earth orbit with GEMINI 7 during its planned two-week stay in space. GEMINI 7 was placed into orbit on December 4, 1965, with astro- nauts Frank Borman and James Lovell aboard. GEMINI 6 was set to launch on December 12 with astronauts Walter Schirra and Thomas Stafford. Two seconds into the launch, a booster problem caused a mission abort. GEMINI 6 finally left the ground on December 15. That same day, the two spacecraft maneuvered within fifteen centi- meters (six inches) of each other. This was vital in determining the ability of the APOLLO Command/Service and Lunar Modules being able to rendezvous and dock with each other in space. GEMINI 7 spent almost fourteen days in Earth orbit, a record for manned space endurance until the Soviet SOYUZ 9 mission in June of 1970 (almost eighteen days). GEMINI 8, launched on March 16, 1966 with astronauts Neil Armstrong and Dave Scott aboard, performed the first successful manned space docking with an AGENA target vehicle. Unfortunately, a malfunctioning GEMINI thruster sent the craft into a dangerous roll which forced the crew to use over seventy-five percent of their maneuvering fuel to stop the motion. An emergency return to Earth was ordered for GEMINI 8. Larry Klaes klaes@wrksys.enet.dec.com or - ...!decwrl!wrksys.enet.dec.com!klaes or - klaes%wrksys.dec@decwrl.enet.dec.com or - klaes%wrksys.enet.dec.com@uunet.uu.net "The Universe, or nothing!" - H. G. Wells ------------------------------ Date: 7 May 90 19:23:01 GMT From: shiva.cs.umd.edu!liu@mimsy.umd.edu (Yuan Liu) Subject: Re: Astro-1 Payload The latest issue of Sky and Telescope has an article on ASTRO-1. Basically, there are four instruments on board. They are three UV scopes and one X-ray scope. I don't have the detail at hand. You can either look it up, or send mail to me and I'll give you a summary. Yuan Liu | Computer Science Dept. liu@brillig.umd.edu | U. of Maryland (O)301 454-6152 | College Park, MD 20742 (H)301 345-2848 | U. S. A. -- o | + ----|| , lZ \/ | > /K /\ \| ^----^ ------------------------------ Date: 7 May 90 19:23:57 GMT From: clyde.concordia.ca!mcgill-vision!quiche!calvin!msdos@uunet.uu.net (Mark SOKOLOWSKI) Subject: Re: Manned mission to Venus In article dlbres10@pc.usl.edu (Fraering Philip) writes: >About Mark Sokolowski's posting: > >It is some of the worst nonsense I have read in quite a while. >Specifically: > >1. Missions to Venus/Colonization: > >Continuing on Venus surface conditions: the atmosphere at the surface is so >thick, walking in it is more akin to wading than walking on dry ground. >Also, due to some interesting refractory effects, the horizon appears to curve >over your head; even when you are standing on a flat plain, it looks like >you are in a bowl. > This isn't true, as the photos from the Veneras have revealed. In fact, the view from the surface is much like on the Earth on an average cloudy day, except that everything seems yellow because of the filtering from the sulfuric acid clouds. In addition, a reprocessing of those pictures to reequilibrate the luminosity has shown that Venus' soil is the same as our own in terms of color (and composition). > >All in all, a pretty bleak place. Much less hospitable than the moon; >much less easy to colonize than the bottom of our own ocean. > I don't see why Venus would be so bleak. After all it is brighter on its surface than in the cold darkness of the Oceans. Furthermore, artificial light, greenhouses with trees and vegetation would make life fairly acceptable there. I would even tell you that being there would be more enjoyable for me than in some space station lost between the Earth and Mars, millions of Km's from any object greater than a grapefruit... > >Also, unless you have a rocket _much_ better than the ones we currently >have, it will take you several months to get there. Several months of >free fall. You see those pictures of the Soviet cosmonauts coming back >after free fall? Straight from the capsule to the stretcher. > Wait a minute: It will be about 2 month and 3 weeks for the travel to Venus, and Venus is our closest neighboor! Of course, the first mission can only deal with a flyby, in which case the whole mission would take less than 2/3 of the time to simply go to Mars. And about the rockets, the Energyia can send a Mir sized spacecraft together with an equally massive supply unit (about 35-40 tons) to Venus (and Mars if you substract a few tons). Sorry, but the logic here points all the way to Venus. For the Saturn V, the figures should be about the same, and 3 or 4 shuttle flights can do it too... > >All in all, a one-way trip such as you propose would be a very expensive >way to die, and for symbolic reasons. Symbolic reasons for exploration >have generally been unsuccessful. Look up any discussion about the >'Star Raft' expeditions to Africa in the time of the Ming Dynasty. >Finally, there are a hell of a lot of more constructive things to do with >several billion (tens of billions?) dollars than give someone a fun way >to suicide. > First of all, I'm not talking about a sophisticated suicide. What I want to see in such a mission is the breaking of an ultimate frontier. If we can land on Venus and STAY THERE ALIVE, then we'll be ready for the entire solar system... > >2. Space technology is not so advanced that only a few thousand people >can understand its use. Maybe in _THIS_ country, but I doubt even that. > True for the PRINCIPLES of this technlogy i.e. action-reaction principle. But what about liquid hydrogen handling, when this hellish liquid boils at 10 K (only a teflon-kevlar alloy isn't like glass at this temperature), vaporizes 10 times faster than water for an equal amount of added energy, is 100 times less visquous than alcohol (leaks through holes of 1/10th of a micron), and is explosive when its concentration in air is above 4%. Not talking about the fact that because it is 14 times less dense than the liquid oxygen it is combined with, the turbopumps have to turn at 1500 rotations PER SECOND MINIMUM. (So the transmission system, IS IT REALLY SO EASY TO MAKE AS THAT OF A CAR?????). Funny that Challenger hasn't exploded because of a problem with one of its 3 main engines... And funny that the decision to put human beings in a REUSABLE LIQUID HYDROGEN PROPELLED spaceship was the most stupid ever (And in fact, is the space shuttle really reusable when they change those main engines at almost every flight????). And this is only an example, dealing with liquid hydrogen.... > >3. Space technology is ***__NOT__*** something that is without promise >until we get around to building warp drive several centuries from now. > Everybody is talking about those asteroids, but some scientists, like Carl Sagan, are now speaking against their exploitation. It seems that they aren't quite so much of them out there, and beside, they keep a good record about the history of the solar system. Everybody is now concerned with environment, but it doesn't mean that we should consider the rest of the solar system as a garbage can. In fact, I am afraid about man going to Mars, the kind of destruction it can do there. First, we have to solve our problems here. Not have so much of them that we will have to export all our garbage (cultural and material) in the entire galaxy. That's why I think we sould not industrialize space for now (I mean, centuries from now). We can go there to conquer, set new frontiers, learn, not colonize in an utmost imperialistic way. Will it really matter to have a factory on the Moon when there will be 10 billion people down here. I bet the rare materials recovered from our satellite will be used to make better weapons and extermination means to control our growing social and geopolitical problems. I'm a little crude here, but I'm sure that a blind faith on salvation from space (and equivalently, a blind faith in the arrival of some martians that will help us) is dangerous because it will surely let our problem down here grow faster than the actual solutions that will be brought by the space-related exotic means. Look at the shuttle!!! They were promising us ONE FLIGHT PER WEEK!!!!!! Factories, thousand of people in space by the 1990's... And it costed billions of truly waisted money, for any unmanned rocket can do the job of the shuttle (I don't care about the fact that man is FLEXIBLE, can have INITIATIVE, since the reliability needed for a spaceship that can carry men cancels that). When sending men out there, we should be realistic about why we do it!!! Sending a manned mission to Venus wouldn't surely be a waist of money, if we compare the costs with those put up for the B-2 and other military curiosities, and because we HAVE TO send mens on such a mission in order to have some interest from the rest of humanity!!!! Mark S. ------- ------------------------------ Date: 7 May 90 22:53:51 GMT From: swrinde!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!sunybcs!ubvms.cc.buffalo.edu!v071pzp4@ucsd.edu (Craig L Cole) Subject: CD-ROMs Hi everyone! I've been constantly reading about CD-ROMs that contain pictures taken by the Voyager probes - I'm very interested, but no one has posted exactly how to get them! Besides Voyager, I'd be very interested in pictures taken by Viking and Mariner. Venera would be nice, but I have no idea how many images the Soviet Union has released to us. Actually - I'd be interested in ANY space related CD-ROMs and would like to know who to write and how much they cost. If I can get any images straight from the net (.GIF is great), PLEASE remeber I'm fairly new to this stuff. If anyone else is interested, drop me a note - I'll forward any replies I get, and if a lot of people are interested, I'll post a summary. Any help would be greatly appreciated! E-mail or posting is fine. Thanks in advance! Craig Cole V071PZP4@UBVMS.CC.BUFFALO.EDU V071PZP4@UBVMS.BITNET ------------------------------ Date: 7 May 90 20:13:58 GMT From: peters@louie.udel.edu (Shirley Peters) Subject: trivia question I figure this would be the best place for a question like this... There was an astronaut named Scott something, he 'blasted into orbit' sometime in 1962 (most likely this month.) Does anyone know the date? If anyone knows, please e-mail me. Thanx, Shirley Shirley Peters peters@udel.edu I'd rather be sleeping! -- Shirley Peters peters@udel.edu I'd rather be sleeping! -------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------ Date: 8 May 90 01:27:04 GMT From: usc!samsung!emory!ogicse!plains!stinnett@ucsd.edu (M.G. Stinnett) Subject: Re: Apollo 12 In article <697@peyote.cactus.org> mosley@peyote.cactus.org (Bob Mosley III) writes: >In article <1990May6.200451.7563@uokmax.uucp>, jabishop@uokmax.ecn.uoknor.edu (Jonathan A Bishop) writes: >> Lately, I've been wondering something. Why was the decision made to >> launch Apollo 12 in a thunderstorm? >...as I recall, it was the last launch window for the DECADE. The decision to >launch despite the weather came down from high up (read: The Trickster) as >a way of adding insult to injury towards a certain Communist government >over who beat who to the moon first. Come on now. Do you have anything to back this up? After all, the "man on the moon" competition was effectively ended when the Soviets quit playing. We'd done it already; there was no pressure political or otherwise, to get in one more before the end of 1969. Nixon was interested in the space program, but not that interested. Somehow I just can't see the NASA administration, and especially the astronauts, passively caving in to such an order. Nixon was not a micro-manager. --M. G. ------------------------------ Date: 7 May 90 16:27:29 GMT From: clyde.concordia.ca!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!utgpu!utzoo!henry@uunet.uu.net (Henry Spencer) Subject: Re: Recovering old spacecraft (was Re: (How to get rid of) space garbage) In article <613@wyvern.cs.uow.oz> ph@wyvern.cc.uow.edu.au (Rev Dr Phil Herring) writes: >Re the last remark about using large planets for assistance: gravitational >assist only works if you want to accelerate the craft as well as re-point >it. It always comes out of the encounter faster than it went in... No, you can decelerate rather than accelerate by suitable choice of trajectory. The various sun-probe proposals use Jupiter flybys to kill virtually all of their orbital velocity, dropping them just about straight down into the Sun. -- If OSI is the answer, what is | Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology the question?? -Rolf Nordhagen| uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu ------------------------------ Date: 7 May 90 21:06:26 GMT From: dsac.dla.mil!dsacg3.dsac.dla.mil!dsacg2.dsac.dla.mil!nam2254@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu (Tom Ohmer) Subject: Magazine advice/recommendation I and a friend of mine are interested in subscribing to some space oriented magazines. I've heard of 'Countdown,' and 'Space Flight News.' Any critiques/suggestions welcome by e-mail. I will post a digest if enough others show interest, if not, I can mail to those supplying adequate addresses. Thanks in advance! -- Tom Ohmer @ Defense Logistics Agency Systems Automation Center, DSAC-AMB, Bldg. 27-6, P.O. Box 1605, Columbus, OH 43216-5002 UUCP: ...osu-cis!dsac!tohmer INTERNET: tohmer@dsac.dla.mil Phone: (614) 238-9210 AutoVoN: 850-9210 Disclaimer claimed ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest V11 #374 *******************