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Date: Wed, 11 Jul 1990 02:57:51 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: SPACE Digest V12 #49

SPACE Digest                                      Volume 12 : Issue 49

Today's Topics:
			re: investing in NASA
		     Re: Bush Approves Cape York
		     Re: Bush Approves Cape York
			 Re: corruption etc.
		  Suspensions of Shuttle Commanders

Administrivia:

    Submissions to the SPACE Digest/sci.space should be mailed to
  space+@andrew.cmu.edu.  Other mail, esp. [un]subscription notices,
  should be sent to space-request+@andrew.cmu.edu, or, if urgent, to
			 tm2b+@andrew.cmu.edu

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

Date: 10 Jul 90 21:28:13 GMT
From: js9b+@andrew.cmu.edu  (Jon C. Slenk)
Subject: re: investing in NASA


Q: Where should we invest?
A: In any company that works via the free market!

-Jon.

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Date: 11 Jul 90 01:08:42 GMT
From: swrinde!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!samsung!munnari.oz.au!mel.dit.csiro.au!latcs1!jtc@ucsd.edu  (Moonwatcher)
Subject: Re: Bush Approves Cape York


	I was at a conference held in Brisbane in April of 1988 discussing
the Space Port. The reason for choosing Cape York was its proximity to the
equator, which is very important if you're going to be launching commercial
communication satellites. NASDA (Japan) stated at the time that if Aus didn't
put a space port there, they'd like to. The initial site was to be near Weipa
on the western side of the cape because of its deep water access for shipping
and its lower environmental impact (as compared to the eastern side). However
the chosen site is Temple Bay which is on the eastern side (reef side). I am
unsure why this site was chosen (though I have my suspicions) as it seems 
incompatible with the guidlines specified at the conference. (Mind you, it'd
be a fantastic place to work :-)
	Woomera was not considered because of its distance from the equator
and its relative inaccessability. It was felt that the cost of upgrade for 
Woomera would limit its attractiveness as a launch site. As for the merits of
launching over the desert, most launches from CY will be out over the Pacific.
	I agree though that Woomera should be utilised. Why should we only have
one space port? 

-- John.

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

Date: 11 Jul 90 01:45:54 GMT
From: uhccux!virtue!comp.vuw.ac.nz!munnari.oz.au!csc!csc3.anu.oz!ccadfa!lpb@ames.arc.nasa.gov  (Lawrie Brown)
Subject: Re: Bush Approves Cape York

>	Woomera is mid-Australia, far from Equator, and may actually be usable
>now that some time has passed since last an atomic device was exploded there.
>It would make a good testing range....

	Lets get a few more facts straight. Woomera is 32 deg South lat,
considerably further south than many other launch sites. Worse, the ONLY
available lauch path is for a RETROGRADE equatorial orbit. For fairly
obvious reasons, they launch only to the west over extremely sparsely
populated desert. Needless to say, this is NOT a really useful orbit
for most commercial interests.

	Woomera is not totally in mothballs at present. It is used several
times a year to launch sounding rockets. In the last few years SN1987A
has been a favorite target. There are also proposals by teh SA govt. for
further test range use. Woomera is also home to the US Narungar (?sp?)
CIA et al snoop base for their ELINT sats.

>	I'd like to know a bit more about where they'll be siting it, and
>how much room for expansion.  I'm assuming that it's on the west side of the
>mountains along the coast, further north than Brisbane, to avoid the worst
>of the Pacific humidity;  I'm also assuming that it's not right along the
>northern coast, in the typhoon belt and the aboriginal reserves.  Dropping
>pieces onto the Barrier Reef may be a concern.

	Ah hmmm - Cape York is as far north again from Brisbane as Brisbane
is from Melbourne; Qld occupies HALF of the entire east coast of Australia.
The current proposed location for the Cape York spaceport is at Temple Bay,
located at 12 deg South lat, on the east side of Cape York. There are two
proposed launch trajectories - one is the the east for equatorial orbits,
for which satellites will get a significant boost due to the launch sites
location near the equator. The impact area for the 1st stage on this path
is much further out to sea than the Barrier Reef. The second proposed
trajectory is SSW to place satellites into a sun-sync orbit. This path
heads SSW over mostly desert regions in outback Qld, NT & SA. Whilst it does
pass fairly close to Adelaide, that is so far down-range that there is no
chance of a lower stage landing there.

	Whilst the proposed site is indeed in the tropics, this is taken
into consideration. So is Kourou, and ESA seem to launch from there with
few obvious problems (nb: Kourou  (& the San Marcos scout base) are
the only extant launch sites closer to the equator than Cape York).

>4 weeks of annual vacation at 17.5% above normal pay.  Don't expect any

	Thankyou - I prefer a nice balanced lifestyle mixing work and pleasure
rather than being run into the ground :-) 

>	And there is always unease thinking about the sparse population
>of northern Australia and the explosive population of Indonesia not far off
>the northern coast....

	Standard military paranoia - noone else bothers much with that. If
you've ever really SEEN northern australia you'd know why. It makes
your Death Valley look like a positive paradise!

	I'll get hold of some of the reports I have on the proposal and
post further details if needed later. It would be nice to see a little 
more use of the FACTS in future.

	Lawrie Brown.

-----
Mr. Lawrie Brown,		    Phone Voice +61 62 688165, Fax +61 62 688581
Centre for Computer Security Research,		Telex: ADFADM AA62030
Dept. Computer Science, UC, UNSW,   UUCP: ...!uunet!munnari!cs.adfa.oz.au!lpb
Australian Defence Force Academy,   ACSNET/ARPA/CSNET: lpb@cs.adfa.oz.au	
Canberra ACT 2600. AUSTRALIA	    Other Gateways: see CACM 29(10) Oct 1986

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

Date: 10 Jul 90 20:10:44 GMT
From: mcsun!ukc!mucs!r5!mario@uunet.uu.net  (Mario Wolczko)
Subject: Re: corruption etc.


In article <1990Jul10.031920.25609@zoo.toronto.edu>,
henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer) writes:
> >I think most of the people on this list are failing to appreciate just
> >what is going on over there in the U.S.S. of R. Democratization, that's
> >what! And what does that mean to us? It means that soon they too will
> >have corruption at all levels of government...
> 
> They already do, actually.
> 
> It might, just possibly, be under slightly better control, given that
> it carries the death penalty there.

Ho, ho, ho!  Some direct experience here suggests that corruption in the
Union of Fewer and Fewer Soviet Socialist Republics makes Latin America
look like Disneyland.

Just look at the outrage from the apparatchiks a couple of years back
when Brezhnev's nephew (or some such relation) was *actually prosecuted*
for siphoning off a few percent of the GNP of one of the republics by
selling off non-existent cotton.

Mario Wolczko
mario@cs.man.ac.uk
% humourous and engaging signature omitted as it's still on tape
% while my disk is being restored.

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

Date: 10 Jul 90 22:56:56 GMT
From: usc!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!mips!sdd.hp.com!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!zardoz.cpd.com!dhw68k!ofa123!Mark.Perew@ucsd.edu  (Mark Perew)
Subject: Suspensions of Shuttle Commanders


Begin Soap_box;
/*
I'm a bit bewildered by NASA's actions here.  While I am not the NTSB
the films shown on the news of the air show crash would seem to me
to indicate that Cmdr Gibson was not to blame for this crash.  On the
other extreme Captain Walker appears to have pulled a major bonehead
mistake yet received the lighter punishment.
 
In my estimation Captain Walker should be expelled from the Astronaut
Corps for a gross violations of FARs.  Cmdr Gibson on the other hand
appears (at least until the NTSB is done) to have done nothing wrong
except to violate a JSC rule that really makes no sense.
 
I say that the JSC rule restricting the actions of assigned crew
members makes no sense in that the enforcement of it appears to 
view risks from a non-real-world viewpoint.  I cannot imagine that the
restrictions "which involve exposure to major or fatal injury" would
be applied to driving the family car home from JSC or to flying on
commercial airliners, both of which are statisically far more hazardous
than engaging in an air race with skilled pilots.
 
If NASA truly wishes to protect the lives and safety of crew-members
then perhaps they should make policies restricting the eating of catfish
or other small boned fish and require that all family and friends of
a crew member know CPR and the Heimlech Manuever.  Those restrictions 
would certainly seem to me to make more sense than the ones currently 
in place.
 
*/
End Soap_box;


--  
Mark Perew
Internet: Mark.Perew@ofa123.fidonet.org
BBS:      714 544-0934   2400/1200/300

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End of SPACE Digest V12 #49
*******************