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 ; Thu, 26 Jul 1990 02:15:17 -0400 (EDT) Message-ID: Precedence: junk Reply-To: space+@Andrew.CMU.EDU From: space-request+@Andrew.CMU.EDU To: space+@Andrew.CMU.EDU Date: Thu, 26 Jul 1990 02:14:43 -0400 (EDT) Subject: SPACE Digest V12 #129 SPACE Digest Volume 12 : Issue 129 Today's Topics: NASA Headline News for 07/25/90 (Forwarded) Re: space news from June 11 AW&ST Re: 4 Questions Payload Status for 07/25/90 (Forwarded) Re: hubble trouble Shuttle safety Statement by NASA Deputy Administrator on launch of CRRES/Atlas-1 (Forwarded) 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: 25 Jul 90 15:37:30 GMT From: trident.arc.nasa.gov!yee@ames.arc.nasa.gov (Peter E. Yee) Subject: NASA Headline News for 07/25/90 (Forwarded) ----------------------------------------------------------------- Wednesday, July 25, 1990 Audio Service: 202/755-1788 ----------------------------------------------------------------- This is NASA Headline News for Wednesday, July 25........ Kennedy Space Center Engineers have completed the third in a series of hydrogen leak tests on the retightened fuel line on the Space Shuttle Atlantis. This morning's tanking test revealed that liquid hydrogen may be leaking from the 17-inch flange joint area on the outside of the external disconnect. NASA managers are currently analyzing the data to determine the effect on the overall launch schedule. Associate Administrator for Space Flight William Lenoir will provide an update at 4:15 P.M. today on NASA Select TV. ******** Upon the recommendation of NASA Administrator Richard Truly, Vice President Quayle today announced the new Chairman of the Advisory Commission on the Future of the U.S. Space Program. This Advisory Committee will provide advise on overall approaches to implement the U.S. Space Program for the coming decades. The first report will be provided to the Administrator in four months. ******** An Exobiology symposium is scheduled to be held today at NASA's Ames Research Center. Topics up for discussion include the existence of animal or vegetable life on Mars. The briefing will be replayed on NASA Select TV on Friday, July 27 at 1:00 P.M. EDT. ******** Scientists from NASA and U.S. universities have joined Canadian researchers in an expedition to study pollution at high northern latitudes and emissions of methane, an important greenhouse gas, from tundra, forests and marshes. The cooperative study called the Atmospheric Boundary Layer Experiment will examine Arctic air mass changes in chemical composition when mixed with continental air masses. ******** In other news, after a five-month delay, Arianespace reports the Ariane 4 rocket carrying 2 European satellites successfully launched at 6:30 P.M. EDT yesterday from Kourou, French Guiana. ******** Space Fax Daily reports a Chinese newspaper called The Legal Daily said thieves had stolen a section of copper cable linking the Xichang launch pad with a command center in Beijing, according to a Reuters Wire Report. It appears the theft disrupted China's first commercial satellite launch last April. --------------------------------------------------------------- Here's the broadcast schedule for Public Affairs events on NASA Select TV. All times are Eastern Daylight. Wednesday, July 25.... 2:00 P.M. Launch coverage of the Combined Release and Radiation Effects Satellite aboard the Atlas Rocket. 4:15 P.M. Space Shuttle Status Media Media Briefing with Associate Administrator for Space Flight Dr. William Lenoir. Thursday, July 26..... 11:00 A.M. U.S. and Soviet crew members of the Apollo-Soyuz Space Mission-- 15-year reunion news briefing at the Kennedy Space Center. 12:00 P.M. NASA Update will be transmitted. 2:00 P.M. Magellan Status Press Conference. A summary on the Venus encounter scheduled August 10. 6:00 P.M. NASA Video Productions. Friday, July 27...... 1:00 P.M. Exobiology briefing at Ames Research Center tape replay from Wednesday, July 25. -------------------------------------------------------------- All events and times may change without notice. This report is filed daily, Monday through Friday at 12:00 P.M., EDT. This is a service of the Internal Communications Branch, NASA HQ. Contact: JSTANHOPE or CREDMOND on NASAmail or at 202/453-8425. -------------------------------------------------------------- NASA Select TV: Satcom F2R, Transponder 13, C-Band, 72 Degrees West Longitude, Audio 6.8, Frequency 3960 MHz. JSNEWS7-25 --------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------ Date: 25 Jul 90 13:24:29 GMT From: usc!cs.utexas.edu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!utgpu!utzoo!henry@ucsd.edu (Henry Spencer) Subject: Re: space news from June 11 AW&ST In article <1990Jul24.133049.16005@watdragon.waterloo.edu> jdnicoll@watyew.uwaterloo.ca (Brian or James) writes: >>... This will take some juggling, as both active VAB bays >>are already occupied... > It strikes me that this would be a particularly poor time to >have a fire in the VAB [Not that there'd ever be a *good* time for one]. >...I wonder what the VAB would cost to duplicate, these days, though... Don't even think about it... NASA used to have an ironclad "no fuel in the VAB" rule. They weren't too pleased about having to handle live SRBs in there. -- NFS: all the nice semantics of MSDOS, | Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology and its performance and security too. | henry@zoo.toronto.edu utzoo!henry ------------------------------ Date: 25 Jul 90 02:56:53 GMT From: sdd.hp.com!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!zardoz.cpd.com!dhw68k!ofa123!Charles.Radley@ucsd.edu (Charles Radley) Subject: Re: 4 Questions Getting a job with NASA is very difficult. You may find it easier to get a job with one of the many contractor companies at the NASA center of your choice. Each comapny will have its own personnel or human resources department, and so will NASA center itself. You could send them resume,. or ask for their standard applicatuion form. For government jobs there is usually a special form you have to fuill out. There is a publication called Air Jobs Digest which is advertsied in Aviation Week, which lists NASA jobs, plus they are also advertised in the local newspapers of the locations of the centers, plus look in professional journals in the field of speciality you wish to work in. -- Charles Radley Internet: Charles.Radley@ofa123.fidonet.org BBS: 714 544-0934 2400/1200/300 ------------------------------ Date: 25 Jul 90 15:33:26 GMT From: trident.arc.nasa.gov!yee@ames.arc.nasa.gov (Peter E. Yee) Subject: Payload Status for 07/25/90 (Forwarded) Daily Status/KSC Payload Management and Operations 07-25-90. - STS-35 ASTRO-1/BBXRT (at OPF) Experiment monitoring continues. - STS-37 GRO (at PHSF) - GRO functional testing will be active today. - STS-39 afp-675/ibss/STP-01 Landline validations at Pad-B continue. - STS-40 SLS-1 (at O&C) - STT operations continue, including MLI installation, and horizontal MVAK training. Also, SLS will be powered up today for experiment checks and IPR troubleshooting. - STS-41 Ulysses (at VPF) - Troubleshooting will continue today on the IUS prla system. Pending the outcome of this troubleshooting the decision will be made as to whether or not to connect Ulysses to the upper stage today. - STS 42 IML-1 (at O&C) Rack, floor, and module staging is continuing. Rack 4 will be mated to the floor today. - Atlas-1 (at O&C) - Coldplate and experiment hardware installations are continuing. - STS-46 TSS-1 (at O&C) - Hardpoint installations will continue today. - STS-47 Spacelab-J (at O&C) - Rack staging continues. ------------------------------ Date: 25 Jul 90 19:48:54 GMT From: swrinde!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!sunybcs!uhura.cc.rochester.edu!rochester!ray@ucsd.edu (Ray Frank) Subject: Re: hubble trouble In article <9007241650.AA03543@sununix.comm.wang.com> DAN.S.SULLIVAN@office.wang.com (Dan Sullivan) writes: >According to Ray Frank: >>I would have interrogated NASAs head even more that Gore. > [lines deleted] >>If the average guy on the job had cost his company even hundreds of >>dollars because of incompetance, he would be fired very quickly. > >The trouble with this analogy is NASAs current head had nothing to do with >the trouble with the HST (assuming it is a design or even manufacturing >defect). He was not around at the time. You might blame him for not >paying as close attention as he should have, but not for the actions >of his predecessors. > >dan sullivan Sounds political to me. Like the current president of the US blaming the previous one for the counties woes, and eight years later, the current president is still blamming his predecessors for our woes. The NASA chief inherited the good, the bad, and the ugly from his predecessor and his job will be to fix the bad, make ugly the more attractive, and make the good even better. Keep in mind that not one NASA job was lost because of the Challenger disaster. So it has become clear to the the big boys that a lot can happen and their jobs can still be protected. I think this type of thinking needs to be changed by making the top people more accountable for their actions. ray ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 25 Jul 90 17:15:28 EDT From: John Roberts Disclaimer: Opinions expressed are those of the sender and do not reflect NIST policy or agreement. Subject: Shuttle safety >From: usc!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!zardoz.cpd.com!dhw68k!ofa123!David.Anderman@ucsd.edu (David Anderman) >Subject: Space shuttle >The space shuttle is probably the most dangerous space vehicle ever >designed (except for the Soviet Voshkod). THere is no way to survive a >first stage engine failure. >David Anderman >Internet: David.Anderman@ofa123.fidonet.org If your second statement applies only to the solid rocket boosters, it's probably correct. If you include the main engines (which are running at liftoff), then you should be aware that there are quite a few failure modes which shuttle and crew would be likely to survive (for example the various abort sequences). PLEASE remember: to analyze risk, you should at least take the expected harm from a given event, and *multiply* it by the calculated probability that the event will take place. Sum these products over all plausible harmful events to get an estimate for overall risk. (Or use a more sophisticated method if you have the mathematical background.) If you don't take a mathematically sensible approach to it, you end up with pure garbage. For instance, noting that exposure to a large quantity of cyanide is more likely to cause death than climbing a flight of stairs, you could conclude that a lot more people are killed by cyanide than stairs. This ignores the fact that the average person has much more exposure to stairs than cyanide, and in fact many more people are killed falling down stairs. I'm aware that it has become popular in the news media to label the Shuttle unreliable in relation to other boosters. Please keep in mind that most of these folks didn't have to take any advanced college math courses to get through journalism school. Sometimes in technical evaluations, the usual handwaving doesn't suffice, and some actual knowledge is needed. NASA claims that the shuttle as it is now being operated (post-Challenger) is safer than any unmanned US booster in the moderate to heavy payload range, based on its estimates of the consequences and probabilities of the various failure modes. I think this is probably a valid claim, and that it can also be applied to Ariane (which has had several failures). I don't know about the Soviet manned and unmanned boosters. (Does anybody have solid numbers?) The latest estimate I've heard is that the Shuttle is up to 8 times as safe (so to speak) as the manned Apollo configuration. There are obviously things that could be improved. The emphasis on performance has led to such tight design tolerances that much of the orbiter has to be disassembled and at least inspected between flights. It would also be nice to have a system that can launch on the first try a higher percentage of the time. Question: Could it be economically practical to retrofit a shuttle with components having wider tolerances, even if it leads to decreased payload, in order to reduce the amount of maintenance required? John Roberts roberts@cmr.ncsl.nist.gov ------------------------------ Date: 25 Jul 90 21:20:40 GMT From: trident.arc.nasa.gov!yee@ames.arc.nasa.gov (Peter E. Yee) Subject: Statement by NASA Deputy Administrator on launch of CRRES/Atlas-1 (Forwarded) Ken Atchison Headquarters, Washington, D.C. July 25, 1990 (Phone: 202/453-8400) RELEASE: 90-104 STATEMENT BY NASA DEPUTY ADMINISTRATOR ON LAUNCH OF CRRES/ATLAS-1 Following today's successful launch of the joint USAF/NASA Combined Release and Radiation Effects Satellite (CRRES) aboard a General Dynamics commercial Atlas-1 (Atlas/Centaur-69) launch vehicle, NASA Deputy Administrator James R. Thompson issued the following statement: "Today's successful launch of the sophisticated scientific satellite known as 'CRRES' marks an important step forward in the 'new way' in which NASA is doing business with the private sector for expendable launch vehicle services. Although NASA maintained both direct oversight and insight throughout the prelaunch and launch process for CRRES, my personal congratulations go out to General Dynamics, and, in fact to the entire industry/government team, for placing CRRES into its proper orbit where it can now begin a string of strenuous scientific tasks. Under terms of our contract with General Dynamics, the government exercised considerably less oversight over launch vehicle manufacturing and processing than it has during previous Atlas/Centaur missions. As a result of the added responsibility accepted and, obviously, demonstrated by the company during this mission, we look forward to future launch services partnerships with General Dynamics and other launch services contractors as we jointly continue to pursue the nation's ambitious scientific goals in space using expendable launch vehicles." ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest V12 #129 *******************