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 ; Sun, 21 Oct 1990 02:03:23 -0400 (EDT) Message-ID: Precedence: junk Reply-To: space+@Andrew.CMU.EDU From: space-request+@Andrew.CMU.EDU To: space+@Andrew.CMU.EDU Date: Sun, 21 Oct 1990 02:02:48 -0400 (EDT) Subject: SPACE Digest V12 #473 SPACE Digest Volume 12 : Issue 473 Today's Topics: Re: Theories needed on life Re: Theories needed on life Re: Launch cost per pound Re: Theories needed on life Pioneer 11 Update - 10/19/90 Re: Pluto Re: Names * SpaceNews 22-Oct-90 * 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: 20 Oct 90 01:03:41 GMT From: ubc-cs!mgobbi@beaver.cs.washington.edu (Mike Gobbi) Subject: Re: Theories needed on life A planet 3 or 4 times the size of earth? Do you mean 3xmass or 3xradius? In the former case, I suspect that the life forms would have short thick legs, and would be unlikely to be humanoid. Far more likely, they would have four or more legs to distribute their mass. In the latter case, we are talking about a 27-G planet! i think that the only conceivable life forms on this planet would certainly be aquatic. That way they are relatively immune to the effects of their mass. As far as culture and society goes (I presume you intend to write a story about this, or something like that...) the sky is the limit. Humanity has had probably hundreds of different cultures in its history, so I suspect that anything you can think of would be plausible from an alien point of view. -- __ /..\ In quest of knowledge.... --mm--mm-- Mike Gobbi ------------------------------ Date: 20 Oct 90 01:37:19 GMT From: unmvax!nmt.edu!pahsnsr@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU (Paul A. Houle) Subject: Re: Theories needed on life Well, how close to human does a creature have to be to be humanoid? I can imagine bipeds being common, but, in our case, it was essentially a development route from primates with four opposite-thumbed 'feet' that makes two hands availible for grabbing onto things. Our hands specialized into manipulators, while our feet specialized in locomotion. That's why, if you look at our tree-climbing brothers, you find that their feet look alot like hands, because their hands and feet aren't as specialized as ours. I think that the quadroped development route probably would tend to produce human-like intellegent species. After all, it seems to me that something has to happen to make limbs availible for something other than walking and standing. But, fundamentally, what kind of symmetries can living things take? How are they built into the morphogenic code? One of the things that higher gravity implies is that the upper limits of size would be smaller. The lower limits will stay the same, so there would be less size-diversity. A human-sized creature will require a much stronger skeleton and more efficient construction than it would on Earth. As size goes down, we'd have to minaturize the equipment needed to lug the brain around - and remember that reaction times would have to be considerably quicker on a high g-planet. So, it would be much harder being an intellegent biped on a high-g world than it is here. Maybe that's why we are here and not on a high-g planet. -- PAUL@JPL.NASA.GOV PAUL@ANDREW.CMU.EDU PAUL@ATHENA.MIT.EDU PAUL@MUSCLE.BEACH PAUL@K00L.NET.GOV PAUL@THRASH.PENTAGON.MIL ------------------------------ Date: 15 Oct 90 17:00:31 GMT From: swrinde!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!sdd.hp.com!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!zardoz.cpd.com!dhw68k!ofa123!David.Anderman@ucsd.edu (David Anderman) Subject: Re: Launch cost per pound Are you willing to state that the Soviet cost per pound in LEO is greater than our cost? If so, apart from stating that it is impossible to compute costs in a command economy, please give me some reasons for asserting that the Soviets are more inefficient than ourselves in launching rockets. -- David Anderman Internet: David.Anderman@ofa123.fidonet.org -------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------ Date: 19 Oct 90 20:41:09 GMT From: unmvax!pprg.unm.edu!topgun!mustang!nntp-server.caltech.edu!seismo.gps.caltech.edu!bruce@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU (Bruce Worden) Subject: Re: Theories needed on life michaelm@vax.MCD.3Com.Com (Michael McNeil) writes: >In article <1990Oct18.213753.34575@eagle.wesleyan.edu> >dlinder@eagle.wesleyan.edu writes: > >> [ what would humanoid life on high-G planet be like? ] >It's highly likely that humanoid life wouldn't exist even on a planet >just like the Earth -- if life were to independently evolve again. >There are just too many other possible pathways for it to follow. >[ .... ] > Life, even cellular life, may exist out yonder in the dark. > But high or low in nature, it will not wear the shape of man. > That shape is the evolutionary product of a strange, long > wandering through the attics of the forest roof, and so > great are the chances of failure, that nothing precisely > and identically human is likely ever to come that way again. > Loren Eiseley, *The Immense Journey*, 1957 I am under the impression that there are relatively few ways for organisms to adapt to a given environment. An often cited example is the physical characteristics of desert plants some of which appear nearly identical to plants on another continent even though the two are completely different species. Ignoring the high-gravity question, isn't it possible that an Earth-like planet could have beings remarkably similar to us? -------------------------------------------------------------------------- C. Bruce Worden bruce@seismo.gps.caltech.edu 252-21 Seismological Laboratory, Caltech, Pasadena, CA 91125 ------------------------------ Date: 19 Oct 90 15:37:08 GMT From: swrinde!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!uakari.primate.wisc.edu!sdd.hp.com!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!jato!mars.jpl.nasa.gov!baalke@ucsd.edu (Ron Baalke) Subject: Pioneer 11 Update - 10/19/90 Pioneer 11 Update October 19, 1990 The Pioneer 11 spacecraft emergency continues. Support from the 70 meter antenna in Spain yesterday provided Ames Research Center with one major telemetry frame. Ames reported that they were able to verify the spacecraft receiver configuration as well as other engineering data. They are continuing the analysis of the spacecraft problem at this time. The 70 meter antenna in Goldstone also provided high power transmitter support last night with a uplink power output of 330 KW. ___ _____ ___ /_ /| /____/ \ /_ /| | | | | __ \ /| | | | Ron Baalke | baalke@mars.jpl.nasa.gov ___| | | | |__) |/ | | |___ Jet Propulsion Lab | baalke@jems.jpl.nasa.gov /___| | | | ___/ | |/__ /| M/S 301-355 | |_____|/ |_|/ |_____|/ Pasadena, CA 91109 | ------------------------------ Date: 20 Oct 90 01:30:07 GMT From: munnari.oz.au!uhccux!tholen@uunet.uu.net (David Tholen) Subject: Re: Pluto In article <1990Oct19.025635.15750@jato.jpl.nasa.gov>, baalke@mars.jpl.nasa.gov (Ron Baalke) writes: > In 1978, it was known that Pluto had a light variation every 6.3867 days, > and this was assumed to be the planet's orbital period. When Jim Christy The 6.3867 day period is the rotational period, not the orbital period. The orbital period is a tad over 248 years. Incidentally, the rotational period has been further refined to 6.387248 days, with an uncertainty of about 0.000011 days. > discovered Charon in 1978, he did so because he noticed bulges in Pluto. The bulges were on the photographic images of Pluto, caused by our atmosphere blurring together the images of Pluto and Charon. > But the bulges were occuring in the north and south poles of Pluto. The bulge was seen in only the northerly and southerly directions on our sky. Because Pluto is tipped on its side, Pluto's poles lie in the east-west direction on our sky, therefore the bulges did not appear near Pluto's poles. > When he correlated the bulges with 6.38767 orbital period, he not only knew > that he had discovered a new moon, but the moon was orbiting north-south. > Since he was also able to tell that the new moon (Charon) was about 1/6 > the size of Pluto, he was able to conclude that the two bodies were Charon has maybe 1/6 the mass of Pluto, but its size is fully 1/2 that of Pluto. > tidally locked. This also implied Pluto was rotating on its side. > > Then a rare event occurred that only happens once every 124 years. Starting > in 1985, Charon started eclipsing Pluto as seen from Earth. This eclipse The eclipses started on 1984 December 18. They were first detected from the Earth in early 1985. > season ended this year, and peaked in 1988 with the eclipsing being seen They ended 1990 October 15, but the last observable event was on 1990 September 23; the later events occurred with Pluto too close to solar conjunction for observation. > edge on. The eclipsing between Pluto and Charon not only determined very > accurately that Pluto was rotating at 94.0 degree angle, but the mass of The inclination of Charon's orbit, and by inference, the tilt of Pluto's rotational axis, is 99.0 degrees, with respect to the equator and equinox of 1950. The uncertainty is still about 0.9 degrees. The tilt with respect to the ecliptic plane or the plane of Pluto's orbit is different, so the angle means nothing unless the reference frame is mentioned along with it. > both Pluto and Charon was also determined. The individual masses of Pluto and Charon remain undetermined. The total mass of the system was derived via Kepler's Third Law, which requires knowledge of the orbital period of Charon and its average distance from Pluto. The eclipses were not necessary to derive the mass of the system. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 19 Oct 90 22:36:12 EDT From: John Roberts Disclaimer: Opinions expressed are those of the sender and do not reflect NIST policy or agreement. Subject: Re: Names >From: julius.cs.uiuc.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!sdd.hp.com!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!jato!mars!baalke@apple.com (Ron Baalke) >Subject: Re: planetary north and names >...The feature name has >two parts; the first part is the female name, the second part is the >feature. Example: Aphrodite Terra. Here is a list of the feature names >used for Venus. >Feature Definition >------------------------------------------------------------------------- >Chasmata Canyons >Colles Small hills, knobs >Coronae Ovoid-shaped features >Craters Craters >Dorsa Ridges >Lineae Elongated markings >Montes Mountains >Paterae Irregularly shaped craters >Planitiae Low Plains >Planum High Plain >Regiones Areas of moderate relief >Rupes Scarps (a cliff or steep slope) >Tesserae Polygonal ground, tiles >Terrae Continents >Tholi Domical hills Thanks - that list will be very useful. Could you also provide the singular forms (or is there a simple conversion rule)? John Roberts roberts@cmr.ncsl.nist.gov ------------------------------ Date: 20 Oct 90 00:23:03 GMT From: ka2qhd!kd2bd@rutgers.edu (John Magliacane) Subject: * SpaceNews 22-Oct-90 * SB SPACE @ ALLBBS < KD2BD $SPC1022 * SpaceNews 22-Oct-90 * Bulletin ID: $SPC1022 ========= SpaceNews ========= MONDAY OCTOBER 22, 1990 SpaceNews originates at KD2BD in Wall Township, New Jersey, United States. It is published every week and is made available for unlimited distribution. * ULYSSES NEWS * ================ Flight controllers began turning on Ulysses's nine science instruments on Friday. All onboard systems are operating normally. The second of two Trajectory Maneuvers is scheduled for 02-Nov-90, and will make final adjustments in the spacecraft's flight path on its way to Jupiter encounter in February 1992. Ulysses was deployed by recent U.S. Space Shuttle mission STS-41 on a five-year mission to study the Sun's poles and interstellar space beyond the poles as well as study the planet Jupiter. * PIONEER 11 NEWS * =================== A spacecraft emergency exists on Pioneer 11. Downlink signals from Pioneer 11 have become variable in strength. The problem could be caused by a problem in a driver amplifier in the satellite's transmitter. Downlink received by the 70 meter antenna in Australia is in low noise configuration, and the receivers are locking up for 3 to 4 second intervals. On Tuesday, commands were sent to the spacecraft using 70 meter antennas in Spain and Goldstone along with 400 kw transmitters. Receiver lock with the 70 meter antenna in Spain remained intermittent and no telemetry was received. * GALILEO NEWS * ================ Galileo's 1200 bps high rate engineering telemetry data was successfully received and processed last week using both 70 meter antennas in Goldstone and Australia. Spacecraft performance continues to be excellent. * HUBBLE NEWS * =============== The Hubble Space Telescope will be used to study a very large storm which has suddenly developed in Saturn's atmosphere. The Washington Times reported that an oval-shaped white spot, one and one-half times as wide as the Earth, has formed in Saturn's cloud belt. Reta Beebe at New Mexico State University reported that two smaller white spots have developed along with the huge oval spot and that the three spots together cover nearly one third of Saturn's surface. * TNX QSL! * ============ A special thanks to all those who sent QSLs, cards and letters to SpaceNews: KJ7H : Al DeVore, Gold Beach, Oregon, U.S.A. WV6V : Steve Hawkins, Castro Valley, California, U.S.A. AL7FS : Jim Larsen, Anchorage, Alaska, U.S.A. F1HUJ : Raynier Di Lenarda, Antibes, France KE7GH : Brian Short, Tempe, Arizona, U.S.A. KA3VVH: Bob Frantz, Quakertown, Pennsylvania, U.S.A. ...and packet radio messages: NJ1H : Bill in Nashua, New Hampshire, U.S.A. N3GHE : Russ Behne, Oxon Hill, Maryland, U.S.A. HB9CWP: Rolf in Switzerland VE7HAQ: Al Quenneville, Victoria, British Columbia, Canada * FEEDBACK WELCOMED * ===================== Feedback regarding SpaceNews can be directed to the editor (John) via any of the following paths: UUCP : ...!uunet!masscomp!catfish!ka2qhd!kd2bd AMPR : KD2BD @ NN2Z.NJ.USA.NA MAIL : John A. Magliacane Department of Electronics Technology Advanced Technology Center Brookdale Community College 765 Newman Springs Road Lincroft, New Jersey 07738 U.S.A. << If you like what you see, send us your QSL card! >> /EX -- John A. Magliacane FAX : (908) 747-7107 Electronics Technology Department AMPR : KD2BD @ NN2Z.NJ.USA.NA Brookdale Community College UUCP : ..!uunet!masscomp!ocpt!ka2qhd!kd2bd Lincroft, NJ 07738 USA VOICE: (908) 842-1900 ext 607 ------------------------------ End of SPACE Digest V12 #473 *******************